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The  Institute  has  attempted  to  obtain  the  best  original 
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Covers  damaged  / 
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Cover  title  missing  /  Le  titre  de  couverture  mannue 

Coloured  maps  /  Cartes  g^ographiques  en  couleur 

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□   Coloured  plates  and/or  illustrations  / 
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Only  edition  available  / 
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int^rieure. 

Blank  leaves  added  during  restorations  may  appear 
within  the  text.  Whenever  possible,  these  have  been 
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apparaissent  dans  le  texte,  mais,  lorsque  cela  6tait 
possible,  ces  pages  n'ont  pas  6\6  film^es. 


r~/\   Additional  comments  / 


L'Institut  a  microfilm^  le  meilleur  exemplaire  qu'il  lui  a 
6\6  possible  de  se  procurer.  Les  details  de  cet  exern- 
plaire  qui  sont  peut-dtre  uniques  du  point  de  vue  blbli- 
ographique,  qui  peuvent  modifier  une  image  reproduite. 
ou  qui  peuvent  exiger  une  modrfteation  dans  la  m^tho- 
de  normale  de  filmage  sont  indiqute  ci-dessous. 

I     I  Coloured  pages  /  Pages  de  couleur 

I  y|   Pages  damaged  /  Pages  endommagtes 


D 


Pages  restored  and/or  laminated  / 
Pages  restaurtes  et/ou  pellicul^es 


0   Pages  discoloured,  stained  or  foxed  / 
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I  y/^  Showthrough  /  Transparence 

I      I   Quality  of  print  varies  / 


n 


n 


Quality  in^gale  de  I'impression 

Includes  supplementary  material  / 
Comprend  du  materiel  suppl^mentaire 

Pages  wholly  or  partially  obscured  by  errata  slips, 
tissues,  etc.,  have  been  refilmed  to  ensure  the  best 
possible  image  /  Les  pages  totalement  ou 
partiellement  obscurcies  par  un  feuillet  d'errata,  une 
pelure,  etc.,  ont  6\6  filmies  k  nouveau  de  fa^on  ^ 
obtenir  la  meilleure  image  possible. 

Opposing  pages  with  varying  colouration  or 
discolourations  are  filmed  twice  to  ensure  the  best 
possible  image  /  Les  pages  s'opposant  ayant  des 
colorations  variables  ou  des  decolorations  sont 
film^es  deux  fois  afin  d'obtenir  la  meilleure  image 
possible. 


Various  pagings. 


Commentaires  suppl^mentaires: 


This  Hem  It  filnwd  at  the  reduction  ratio  checlced  below  / 

Ce  document  est  film4  au  taux  de  rMuction  indlquA  ci-dessous. 


lOx 

14x 

18x 

22x 

26x 

30x 

y 

12x 


16x 


20x 


24x 


28x 


32X 


Th«  copy  filmtd  h«r«  Hm  t—n  raproducad  thanks 
to  th«  g«n«re«ity  of: 

HcHastar  University 
Hamilton,  Ontario 

Tho  imago*  appoaring  hara  ara  ttia  baat  quality 
possibio  considaring  tha  condition  and  lagibility 
of  tho  original  copy  and  in  kaaping  with  tho 
filming  eontraet  spocif icationa. 


L'aKampiaira  film4  fut  raproduit  grica  A  la 
ginirosit*  do: 

McHastor  University 
Hamilton,  Ontario 

Los  imagas  suivantas  ont  At*  roproduitas  avac  la 
plus  grand  soin.  eompto  tanu  da  la  condition  at 
da  la  nattati  da  raxampiaira  filmA,  at  tn 
conformity  avac  las  conditions  du  contrst  do 
filmaga. 


Origirtal  copios  in  printod  popor  covors  »n  fllmod 
beginning  with  tho  front  covor  and  anding  on 
tho  last  pago  with  a  printad  or  illustratad  imprao- 
sion.  or  tho  bock  covor  whon  appropriata.  All 
othor  original  copioa  ara  filmad  boginning  on  tho 
first  pogo  with  a  printad  or  illustratad  impraa- 
aion.  and  anding  on  tho  last  paga  with  a  printad 
or  illuatratad  improssion. 


Los  OKompiairaa  originaux  dont  la  couvorturo  an 
popior  ost  imprimOo  sont  fiimis  on  commoncant 
por  lo  promiar  plat  at  an  tarminant  soit  par  la 
darnlAra  paga  qui  comporto  uno  omprainta 
d'imprassion  ou  d'illustration.  soit  par  la  sacond 
plat,  salon  lo  caa.  Tous  los  sutros  sxamplairas 
originoux  sont  filmAs  an  commanpant  par  la 
pramiira  paga  qui  comporto  uno  omprainta 
d'impraasion  ou  d'illustration  ot  an  tarminant  par 
la  darniira  paga  qui  comporto  una  taila 
amprainta. 


Tha  laat  racordad  frama  on  aach  microficho 
shall  contain  tha  symbol  ^»>  (maaning  "CON- 
TINUED "I,  or  tha  symbol  ▼  (mooning  "END"), 
whichovor  appiias. 


Un  daa  symbolos  suivants  spparaitra  sur  la 
darniAra  imaga  da  ehaqua  microficho.  salon  la 
cas:  la  symboio  — »  signifio  "A  SUIVRE  '.  lo 
symbolo  ▼  signifio  "FIN  ". 


Mops,  platas.  chsrts.  ate,  may  ba  filmad  at 
diffarant  reduction  ratios.  Thoso  too  iarga  to  bo 
ontiroly  included  in  ono  axposuro  sro  filmed 
boginning  in  the  upper  left  hond  corner,  left  to 
right  and  top  to  bottom,  as  many  frames  ss 
required.  Tho  following  diegroms  illustrate  the 
method: 


Los  cartas,  planches,  tableaux,  etc.,  peuvent  itre 
filmte  A  des  taux  da  reduction  diffirents. 
Lorsquo  ie  document  ost  trop  grsnd  pour  itre 
reproduit  en  un  soul  clich<?   il  est  film*  A  partir 
da  Tangle  supArieur  gauche,  da  gauche  A  droite. 
ot  do  haut  en  bas.  en  prenant  la  nombre 
d'imoges  nAcessaire.  Las  diagremmes  suivants 
illustrent  ie  mAthode. 


1 

2 

3 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

MICIOCOfY   RBOIUTION   TIST  CHART 

(ANSI  and  ISO  TEST  CHART  No.  2) 


■a 


13.2 


13.6 


14J3 


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1.8 


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M 


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CARLYLE 

ON  HEROES.  HERO-WORSHIP,  AND  THE 
HEROIC  IN  HISTORY 


EDITEIJ   BY 

ARCHIBALD   MacMECHAN 

GlOIIGB    MUNKO    1'hiiK|:sS(1K   (IK    KN(il.ISll     I.AN<a  A(.K    AMI    I.ITKK ATI'DR 

IN  Ualhuusib  Coi.i.KiiK,  KiirroR  ok  "Saktok  Rksakiis" 


GINN  &  COMPANY 

BOSTON  ■  NEW  YORK  •  CHICAGO  •   LONDON 


CoI'VHinilT,    iqnl 

Bv  ARCIIIilAM)   M.mMM'IIAN 

Al.t   NirtllTS   KRKKKVItU 


J 


GINN   \-   1 OMPANY  •  PRt)- 
rHlUTUKS  •  UUSTON  •  V^-A. 


TO 

MY  FATHER 

WHO  FIRST  TAUGHT   ME   BY  WORD  AND   DEED 
THE   MEANING  OF  "HEROIC" 


r   » 


:  i 


u 


PREI ACE 


The  task  of  the  commentator  on  the  trail  of  his  facts  is  like 
that  set  the  Irish  herd-boy  in  t»  -  folk-tale,  when  he  lost  the 
heifers,  namely,  to  search  "  every  place  likely  and  unlikely  for 
them  all  to  be  in."    The  first  part  of  this  roving  commission, 
It  IS  possible,  with  lime  and  luck,  to  execute ;  but  t)  hunt  the 
shy  allusions,  the  remote  quotations,  the  deep-lurking  bits  o' 
mformation.  through  every  "  unlikely  "  covert,  forms  a  too 
extensive  programme.     Indeed,  the  editor  comes  at  last  to  a 
pomt.  when  h.     -els  that  nothing  further  can  be  effected  by 
organized  search.     It  is  only  by  pure  chance,  when  looking  for 
other  thmgs.  that  he  can  hope  to  run  across  the  fugitive  erudi- 
tion which  will  make  his  commentary  as  full  as  it  should  be 
This  IS  sadly  true  of  any  one  who  would  edit  Carlyle      In 
annotating  Hmn-s,  I  have  aimed  at  compression,  and  striven 
as  in  Sartor  Mes.irtus,  to  make  the  author  supply  the  com- 
ment on  his  own  work.     Some  things  which  would  tend  to 
enlightenment  I  have  not  beui  able  to  find  and  I  have  said 
so  m  my  Not.^s.  in  the  hope  that  better  sch       s  will  discover 
them.     Only  after  many  toilsome  hours  dir       give  over  the 
pursuit  of  any  one.     Fortunatel-  J/rroc.    needs  little  expla- 
nation ;  the  difficulties  are  few. 

The  text  used  as  a  ba  is  is  that  of  ihe  People's  Edition, 
187  «-j874.  It  has  been  dmgontly  compared  with  those  of  the 
first  three  editions,  of  ,84..  ,842,  and  ,846  ;  and  the  results 
of  the  collation  are  placed  at  the  foot  of  the  page.  In  the 
process  of  reprinting,  year  after  year,  some  score  or  so  of 
prmter's  errors  had  crept  in.  These  have  been  silently 
corrected;  otherwise  the  text  is  as  Carlyle  left  it. 

vii 


f~ 'I 


U 


--fit 


vm 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


In  the  Introduction,  I  have  tried,  by  using  contemporary 
evidence,  to  show  what  Carlyle  was  like  as  a  lecturer,  and 
to  recover  his  audience.  The  whole  story  is,  I  believe,  told 
here  for  the  first  time.  Thanks  to  a  member  of  the  Carlyle 
clan,  it  has  been  possible  to  establish,  also  for  the  first  time, 
the  relation  between  Heroes,  the  lectures  delivered,  after 
careful  preparation,  without  notes,  and  Heroes,  the  elaborated 
book.  As  a  book,  it  is,  perhaps,  the  hastiest  and  slightest 
of  his  works,  and  contains  a  large  number  of  petty  errors 
which  can  lessen  its  value  only  in  the  bisson  conspectuities 
of  niggling  pedants.  Still,  in  the  interests  of  the  under- 
graduate, for  the  safe-guarding  of  his  literary  morals,  these 
errors  must  be  exposed.  The  young  bow  too  readily  to  the 
authority  of  the  printed  page.  Certain  points  in  the  bibli- 
ography of  Heroes,  previously  obscure,  are  now  made  clear. 
These  are  the  chief  results  of  two  years'  study. 

My  thanks  and  gratitude  are  due  to  the  many  unknown 
friends  who  responded  so  promptly  and  generously  to  my 
note  of  inquiry  in  The  Nation,  June  13,  1898  ;  to  Dr.  Samuel 
A.  Jones  of  Ann  Arbor,  Carlylean  professed,  for  aid  heartily 
given  forth  from  his  stores  of  information  and  his  unrivalled 
collection  of  Carlyleana  ;  to  Professor  Kittredge,  my  Kditor- 
in-Chief,  for  constant  help  of  all  kinds ;  to  Mr.  Alexander 
Carlyle,  of  30.  Newbattle Terrace,  Edinburgh,  for  his  kindness 
in  furnishing  extracts  from  his  great  kinsman's  unpublished 
letters ;  and  to  my  friend  and  colleague.  Dr.  John  Johnson, 
Professor  Emeritus  of  Classics  in  this  collej::e,  for  unfailing 
patience  and  accuracy  in  reading  proof.  In  this  most  difficult 
art,  he  hath  no  Tellow. 

A.  M. 


Dalhousie  College,  Halifax,  N.S., 
Jan.  22,  1901. 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION 

I.    Carlyle  as  a  Lecturer,  the  First  Three  Courses 

II.   Heroes,  the  Lectures 

III.   Heroes,  the  Book.     Composition  and  Diffusion 

IV-    Style ■  ,j^ 

V.    Ideas .     •• 

VI.   Value.     Influence     . \\xv\\ 


I'AliR 

xi 

XXXV 

1 


On  Heroes,   Hkro-Wokshh.,   and  thk   Heroic  in 

History 

LECTURK   I 

The  Hero  AS  Divinity.     Odin.     1>a(;anis.m  :   Scandinavian 
Mythology    .... 


LECTURE   II 
I  The  Hero  as  Prophkt.     Mahd.mkt:  Islam 

LECTURE   III 
The  Hero  as  Poet.     Dantk;  Shaksieake  . 

LECTURE   IV 


48 


.     .      89 


The  Hero  as  Priest.     Lumii  k  :  R.:kormat(..n  :  Knox;  Phki- 
tanism    .... 


u 


I      'I 

I      ) 


J 


i4 


i 


I 


V       i 


-    ■    \-\ 


X  CONTENTS 

LECTURE    V 

PACK 

The  Hero  as  Man  of  Letters.    JoirxsoN,  Rousseau,  Hurns     177 

LECTURE   VI 

The  Hero  as  King.     Cromwei.i.,  Napoleon  :  Modern  Revo- 
lutionism    225 

Cari-yle's  Summary 283 

Notes ,„-, 

Cari.ylk's  Index 367 

Index  to  Introduction  and  Noiks yj\ 


INTRODUCTION 


Whether  or  not  it  is  true,  that  the  noblest  prospect  a 
Scotchman  ever  sees  is  the  highroad  that  leads  him  to 
England,  many  a  man  of  the  north  country  has  acted  as  if 
it  were,  ever  since  James  the  First  set  the  fashion,  and  has 
taken,  for  good  and  all,  the  southward  way.  In  three  cen- 
turies, the  band  of  exiles  has  grown  large  and  numbers  many 
famous  names,  but  none  more  illustrious  than  Thomas 
Carlyle.  In  1834,  in  the  summer  that  saw  the  death  of 
Coleridge  and  the  completed  publication  of  Sartor,  after 
a  sequestration  of  six  mystic  years  at  Craigenputtoch, 
Carlyle,  on  his  wife's  advice,  burnt  his  ships  and  flitted, 
with  bag  and  baggage,  to  the  great  Babylon,  from  which, 
although  he  railed  against  it  incessantly,  he  could  no  more 
tear  himself  away  than  his  hero  Johnson.  In  the  suburb  of 
Chelsea,  in  an  old-fashioned  house  that  had  stood  since  the 
days  of  Addison,  he  made  his  home.  There  he  was  destined 
to  pass  the  remaining  sever  and  forty  years  of  life  allotted 
to  him,  and  to  make  that  humble  lodging  a  point  of  light  in 
the  great  murky  city,  whither,  for  years  to  come,  the  eyes 
of  earnest  men  and  women  were  to  turn  with  interest,  with 
eagerness,  with  reverence.  There,  he  did  the  work  appointed 
him,  the  building  of  his  three  great  histor  -s  ;  there,  he 
thought  and  wrote  and  triumphed  and  suffered.  That 
house  is  known,  room  by  room,  from  kitchen  to  suund-proo. 
study,  by  thousands  who  never  saw  it  with  their  bodily  eves. 
Like  the  two  lives  passed  within  it,  that  house  lies  open  and 

xi 


M!.. 


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I 


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If:-.. 


ri. 


(,ii 


xu 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


\\  1 


naked  to  all  who  wish  to  explore  it.  Mean  souls  are  aware 
of  nothing  but  a  cage  for  spiritual  squalor;  but  others, 
clearer-eyed,  find  it,  in  the  prophet's  own  words,  forever 
venerable.  For  here  lived  one  who  taught,  and  with 
authority. 

Number  5,  Cheyne  Row,  Chelsea,  was  a  fit  home  for  a 
man  of  letters  like  Carlyle.  In  a  ruined  house,  a  stone's 
throw  away,  Smollett,  another  exiled  Scottish  author  with  a 
temper,  wrote  Count  Fathom,  Even  nearer  was  the  place 
where  More  had  entertained  Erasmus,  when  he  came  to 
England  to  study  (ireek.  The  very  coffee-house  in  which 
Mr.  Bickerstiiff  saw  Pontius  Pilate's  Wife's  Chambermaid's 
Sister's  Hat,  and  entertained  doubts  thereon,  was  still  flour- 
ishing. In  Chelsea  once  lived  Bolingbroke,  the  friend  of 
Pope  and  teacher  of  Voltaire  ;  and  earlier  still,  the  Count 
de  Grammont.  Not  far  away,  at  4  Upper  Cheyne  Row, 
lived  Leigh  Hunt,  the  lampooner  of  the  Regent,  —  he  spent 
two  years  in  prison  for  calling  a  prince  "a  corpulent  Adonis  of 
fifty  " !  —  the  peculiar  friend  of  Byron,  the  original  of  Harold 
Skimpole,  the  enviable  hero  of  Jenny  Kissed  Me.  The  win- 
dows afforded  glimpses  of  the  Thames,  Turner's  own  river, 
of  Westminster  Abbey,  even  of  the  ball  and  cross  above 
Wren's  monument,  and,  at  nights,  far  away  in  the  west,  of 
the  lights  of  Vauxhall.  Here,  friends,  neither  too  many  nor 
too  few,  Mill,  Hunt,  Sterling,  Taylor,  Allan  Cunningham, 
gathered  round  the  man  and  woman  of  genius  ;  they  never 
wanted  friends;  and  the  letters  of  that  time  show  that  it 
was  a  time  of  peace. 

As  soon  as  he  was  settled  in  his  new  home,  Carlyle  set  to 
work,  with  good  heart,  upon  his  first  great  book.  The  French 
Revolution,  itself,  as  he  says,  a  kind  of  French  Revolution, 
labored  over  it  late  and  early,  lost  the  first  book  by  the  neg- 
liijence  of  Mrs.  Taylor's  maid,  according  to  the  famous 
story,  rewrote  it,  and  then,  at  the  end  of  two  years'  work, 


JIVTRODUCTIOX 


Xltt 


found  that  the  London  booksellers  were  willing  to  publish 
it  on  the  munificent  half-profits  system,  which  meant  that 
they  got  everything  and  the  author,  nothing.  Three  pub- 
lishers besieged  Harriet  Martineau  in  her  own  house  for  her 
book  on  America ;  but,  for  the  history  that  is  among  the 
others,  as  a  living  man  among  corpses,  no  one  would  offer  a 
shilling.  Carlyle  made  literature  his  crutch,  not  his  walking- 
stick,  and  it  served  him  ill.  His  letters  show  depressioa, 
natural  enough.  Of  his  genius  there  could  be  no  doubt, 
still  less,  of  his  infinite  capacity  for  taking  pains ;  his 
achievement  was  already  great  and  solid ;  he  was  thrifty 
with  Scottish  thrift  and  proud  with  Scottish  pride ;  and  yet 
he  had  turned  forty  and  had  not  grasped  success.  With  all 
his  gifts  he  could  not,  with  the  most  strenuous  efforts,  do 
what  a  hundred  thousand  tradesmen  in  London  were  doing, 
make  his  home  secure  against  poverty.  It  was  in  this  crisis 
that  his  friends  found  for  him  a  way  of  escape. 

From  the  first,  all  who  knew  him  were  struck  with  Carlyle's 
power  of  the  tongue.  For  a  long  time,  it  was  greater  than 
his  power  of  the  pen  ;  and  when  he  did  master  that  difficult 
instrument,  his  very  originality,  the  thing  the  world  clamors 
for  and  when  found,  abuses,  stood  in  the  way  of  his  success. 
The  Edinburgh  address  almost  makes  us  wish  that  he  had 
obtained,  in  time,  one  of  the  positions  he  applied  for.  Thomas 
Carlyle,  Professor  of  History,  of  Moral  Philosophy,  of  Litera- 
ture, of  Things  in  General,  would  have  been  a  force  in  any 
university ;  he  might  have  been  the  kind  of  inspired  teacher 
he  hoped  as  a  lad  to  find  in  Edinburgh,  Blackie,  Jowett, 
and  Fichte  in  one.  He  might  st.ill  have  written  all  his 
books  and  have  been  a  happier  man,  for  hriving  an  assured 
livelihood,  and  regular  work,  and  the  constant  inspiration  o' 
young  disciples.  As  it  was,  in  the  year  that  Queen  VictoriL 
came  to  the  throne,  the  year  in  which  'her  little  majesty' 
and  The  French  Revolution  began  to  reign  together,  Carlyle 


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1  - 


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B  '  *  i  'I 


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XIV 


LECTURES  OX  HEROES 


came  before  the  world  as  a  teacher  by  word  of  mouth.  His 
friends  found  for  him  a  new  profession,  which  he  was  to 
follow,  for  four  years,  with  complete  success.  This  was 
lecturing. 

As  early  as  the  year  of  Carlyle's  hegira  to  London,  "  to 
seek  work  and  bread,"  Emerson,  his  spiritual  son,  who  had 
sought    out   the  nook-shotten  philosopher    in  the  wilds  of 
Dumfries,  suggested  his  coming  to  America  to  lecture  ;  and, 
for  six  years,  the  prospect  was  not  without  allurement  for 
him.     Spurzheim  and  Silliman,  he  was  told,  had  made  their 
thousands  by  lectures ;  and  '  the  surprising  Yankeet  '  who 
bought   his   books  would,   no   doubt,  have   supported   the 
lecturer  as  loyally  as  they  rallied  to  the  struggling  author, 
for  whom  his  own  country  had  not  recognition,  and  scarcely 
bread.     There  was  warrant  for  such  an  undertaking.     The 
poet  of  The  Ancient  Mariner,  who  followed  Johnson  and  pre- 
ceded Cariyle  himself  in  the  office  of  literary  dictator,  oracle, 
and  prophet,  had  given  the  world  his  criticisms  of  Shakspere 
and  Milton,  first,  in  the  form  of  lectures ;  and  the  young  De 
Quincey  had  then  seen  the  street  in  front  of  Count  Rumford's 
Royal  Institution  blocked  with  the  carriages  of  women  of 
distinction.      Hazlitt  had  lectured  on   the   English   poets; 
Sydney  Smith  lectured  ;  Owen,  Airey,  Faraday  gave  popular 
courses  of  lectures.     Chalmers  was  to  lecture  in  London  at 
the  same  time  that  Cariyle  gave  his  second  course.     Emer- 
son was  to  follow  him,  and  Froude  was  to  hear  Carlyle's 
loud  but  not  unkindly  laugh  at  the  'rather  moonshiny  close' 
of  one  of  his  discourses.     Thackeray,  when  he  damned  the 
four  Georges  to  everlasting  fame,  occupied  the  very  room  in 
which  Cariyle  gave  his  first  course ;  and  it  is  computed  that 
he  talked  to  the  tune  of  about  a  guinea  a  minute.     The  first 
half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  now  dead  and  buried,  was, 
in  fact,  the  Golden  Age  of  lecturing.     Cariyle,  too,  became 
a  lecturer,  but  he  never  saw  America. 


INTRODUCTION 


XV 


The   launching   of   the  lecturer  was   eflfected  by  purely 
human  methods.     At  first,  the  Royal  Institution  was  thought 
of ;  but  their  pay  was  small  and  their  programme  was  full 
for  the  wmter.     Then  came  a  bolder  conception.     Instead 
of  giving  a  winter  course,  under  the  wing  of  any  institution 
Carlyle  should  come  forward  as  an  independent  lecturer  in 
the  height  of  the  London  SLa>r,n.     His  friends  left  little  to 
chance.    They  circulated  a  prospectus,  opened  a  subscription 
book  at  Saunders  and  Ottley's,  printed  tickets,  price  one 
gumea,  and  user"  their  personal  inHuence  to  gather  an  audi- 
ence together.     Looking  back  upon  this  period,  from  the 
time  of  his  great  sorrow,  Carlyle  does  not  remember  clearly 
whether  there  were  three  courses  or  four,  but  he  does  recall 
the  names  of  those  who  helped  him.     These  were  Miss  and 
Mr.   Thomas   Wilson    of    Eccleston    Street,    "opulent    fine 
Church  of  England  people,"  deaf  Harriet  Martineau   \  suc- 
cessful authoress  in  the  first  Hush  of  her  popularity,  fresh 
from  America  and  the  Abolition  riots  in   Uoston,  Frederick 
LIlK.t,  and  Henry  Taylor,  the  author  of /'//////  van  Artai'cUe 
On  March  24,  ,837,  Carlyle  writes  to  his  brother  John  in 
high  spirits.    The  Marchioness  of  Lansdowne  and  honorable 
women  not  a  few  have  put  down  their  names  for  his  course  • 
he  IS  to  have  an  "  audience  of  Marchionesses,  Ambassadors  '' 
''all  going  hke  a  house  on  fire."     The  prospect  is  so  bright 
that  he  inserts  a  brief  ejaculatory  prayer  against  "the  mad- 
ness of  popularity."      This,    perhaps,    Carlyle   might  have 
omitted,  had  he  known  how  diligently  his  friends  were  drum- 
ming up  recruits  for  him.     A  characteristic  letter  from  Sped- 
ding  shows  how  these  little  things  are  managed.    On  April  4 
he  invited  Monckton  Milnes,  the  "Cool  of  the  evening" 
the  "beautiful  little  Tory,"  who,  Carlyle  thought,  should  be 
'-perpetual  president  of  the  Heaven  and  Hell  Amalgamatior. 
i^ociety,"  to  come  up  to  London  and  help  him  to  roll  a  log 
'  I  take  the  opportunity  of  writing  to  make  you  know,  if  you 


['      af    'i 

m 


n  1 


(    »■ 


XVI 


LEC  TUNES  OiV  HEROES 


I 


do  not  know  already,  that  Carlylc  lectures  on  German  litera- 
ture next  month  ;  the  particulars  you  will  find  in  the  enclosed 
syllabus,  which,  if  it  should  convey  as  much  knowledge  to 
you  as  it  does  ignorance  to  me,  will  be  edifying.  Of  course, 
you  will  be  here  to  attend  the  said  lectures,  but  I  want  you 
to  come  up  a  little  before  they  begin,  that  you  may  assist  in 
pr  uring  the  attendance  of  others.  The  list  of  subscribers 
is  at  present  not  large,  and  you  are  just  the  man  to  make  it 
grow.  As  it  is  Carlyle's  first  essay  in  this  kind,  it  is  impor- 
tant that  there  should  be  a  respectable  number  of  hearers. 
Some  name  of  decided  piety  is,  I  believe,  rather  wanted. 
Learning,  taste,  and  nobility  are  represented  by  Hallam, 
Rogers,  and  Lord  Lan?downe.  H.  Taylor  has  provided  a 
large  proportion  of  family,  wit,  and  bea  tty,  and  I  have 
assisted  them  to  a  little  Apostlehood.  We  want  your  name 
to  represent  the  great  body  of  Tories,  Roman  Catholics, 
High  Churchmen,  metaphysicians,  poets,  and  Savage  Lan- 
dor.  Come !  "  '  The  only  phrase  here  that  may  not  be 
plain  is  a  "  little  Apostlehood  "  ;  it  refers  to  the  brilliant 
circle  of  Cambridj^e  men,  of  which  Arthur  Hallam  was  the 
centre.  He  had  been  dead  four  years.  The  others  were 
Tennyson,  James  Spedding  himself,  Milnes,  Trench,  future 
Archbishop  of  Dublin,  Alford,  John  Sterling,  F.  D.  Maurice, 
Venables,  FitzCierald,  the  translator  of  Omar,  Kinglake,  the 
historian  of  the  Crimean  war,  and  the  two  Lushingtons. 
How  many  of  these  Spedding  induced  to  attend,  is  not 
known  ;  but  the  fact  remains  that  the  friends  of  Carlyle 
worked  well,  and  when  the  hour  came  and  the  man,  there 
was  an  audience  awaiting  him. 

Carlyle's  preparation  for  the  course  was  not  so  thorough. 
Up  to  the  day  before  the  lectures  began,  he  was  busy  with 
the  proofs  of  The  Fraiih  RcvolutioH.  I'esides,  his  wife  was 
ill ;  he  could  hear  the  cough  on  the  other  side  of  the  wall, 

^  The  Life  of  Lord  Iloughton,  I,  192.     N.Y.,  n.d. 


INTRODUCTIOX 


XVll 


as  he  sat  up  to  the  ears  in  books  and  pamphlets.     How- 
ever,  he  had  large  stores  of  knowledge  long  laid  up,  and  he 
chose   to  draw   upon   the  largest  and  richest  of  all.     For 
years,  he  had  been  studying,  translating,  and  writing  essays 
on   German   literature.     The   extent   and   intimacy  of  his 
knowledge  surprised  even  Goethe,  who  pronounced  him  to 
be  "almost  more  at  home  in  our  literature  than  we  our- 
selves." '     He  proposed  to  cover  the  whole  field  of  German 
literary  history  from  Ulfilas  to  Jean  Paul,  beginning  with  the 
origins  of  the  Teutonic  people  and  ending  with  forecasts  of 
literature  to  come.'^     One  thinks  of  Huxley  giving  a  whole 
lecture  on  a  piece  of  chalk,  and  wonders  at  the  distance 
traversed  in  a  single  address;  but  discursiveness  was  the 
note  of  lecturing  then  ;  one  of  Coleridge's  courses  included 
"Architecture,    Gardening,    Dress,    Music,    Painting,   and 
Poetry."     There  was  one  great  advantage,  however.     Judg- 
mg  from  Spedding's  letter,  Carlyle  was  to  break  up  virgin 
soil.     He  was  to  have  the  rare  privilege  of  addressing  an 

1  Eckermann,  Oct.  it,  tSaS. 

*»  These  were  the  topics  of  the  six  lectures: 

..On  the  Teutonic  People,  the  German  Language.  Ulfilas.  the 
xXorthern  Immigration,  and  the  Nibelungen  Lied. 

2  On  the  Minnesinger,  Tauler,  Reineke  Fuchs,  the  Legend  of  Faust, 
the  Reformation,  Luther,  Ulrich  von  Ilutten. 

3-  On  the  Master  Singers  Hans  Sachs.  Jacob  H.ihme,  Decay  of 
German  Literature,  Anton  Ulrich  Duke  of  IJrunswick,  Opitz,  I^ibnltz 

4.  On  the  Resuscitation  of  German  Literature,  Lessing,  Klop- 
stock,  Gellert,  Uvater.  Efflorescence  of  (German  Literature.  Werther^ 
iioetz. 

S-  On  the  Characteristics  of  New-German  Literature,  Growth  and 
Decay  of  Opinion.  Faust,  I'hilosophy,  Kant.  Fichte,  Schelling.  Art  and 
nehef.  Goethe. 

6.  On  the  Drama,  Schiller:  Pseudo-Drama.  Klinger,  Kot/ehnc 
\Verner:  Romance,  Tieck,  Novalis :  Pseudo-Romance.  Hoffmann: 
loetry  and  German  Literature,  Herder,  Wieland.  the  Schlegels,  Jean 
i'aul :  Results,  Anticipations.     C.Z.Z.  L  1.5. 


i»-  -U    f 


b- 


i 


•  •• 

XVIll 


LECrUHES  Of/  HEROES 


ilil 


audience  on  a  subject,  about  which  they  knew  nothing,  »  d 
he  knew  everything. 

There  were  minor  difficulties.  He  was  resolved  not  to 
read  his  lectures,  but  to  speak  extempore,  an  orde.il  doubly 
dreadful  to  a  nervous  man  and  one  inexperienced  in  the 
art.  Another  cause  for  apprehension  was  that  he,  the  peas- 
ant scholar,  was  to  address  an  audience  of  fashionable  and 
titled  people  at  Almack's,  the  gathering-place  of  London 
society.  One  of  his  lady  admirers  was  afraid  he  might  even 
sin  against  the  conventionalities,  perhaps  go  so  far  as  to 
begin  with  "Gentlemen  and  Ladies,"  instead  of  the  usual 
formula.  His  wife  knew  that  he  was  more  likely  to  open 
firt  with  "Men  and  Women,"  or  "Fool  creatures  come  hither 
for  diversion."  As  his  nervousness  increased  with  the 
approach  of  the  fated  day,  Carlyle,  to  keep  up  his  mother's 
spirits  and  his  own,  drafted  the  humorous  valedictory  which, 
after  all,  he  did  not  need  to  use :  "  Good  Christians,  it  has 
become  entirely  impossible  for  me  to  talk  to  you  about 
German  or  any  literature  or  terrestrial  thing;  one  request 
only  I  have  to  make,  that  you  would  be  kind  enough  to 
cover  me  under  a  tub  for  the  next  six  weeks  and  to  go  your 
ways  with  all  my  blessing."  A  more  important  matter  was 
punctuality.  By  putting  on  all  the  clocks  and  watches, 
Mrs.  Carlyle  knew  that  she  could  insure  his  being  at  "  the 
place  of  execution "  at  the  appointed  time.  How  to  stop 
him  at  "four  precisely"  was  something  harder.  One  device 
that  suggested  itself  was  to  lay  a  lighted  cigar  upon  the 
table  just  as  the  clock  struck  the  hour.  Happily  all  these 
fears  and  apprehensions  were  groundless. 

May  the  First,  1837,  was  a  notable  day.  In  the  afternoon, 
Carlyle  lectured  at  A'mack's ;  and  in  the  evening  Macready 
produced  young  Mr.  Robert  Browning's  Strafford,  for  the  first 
time,  at  Covent  Garden.  Hallam,  of  the  Middle  Ages,  "a 
broad,  old,  positive  man,  with  laughing  eyes,"  was  chairman 


INTRODUCTION 


XIX 


and  brought  the  lecturer  face  to  face  with  his  first  audience, 
the  two  hundred  ho    ers  of  guinea  tickets.     It  was  made  up 
of  the  elements  referred  to  in  Spedding's  letter.     Learning, 
taste,  nobility,  family,  wit  and  beauty  were  all  represented  in 
that  assembly  ;  ••  composed  of  mere  quality  and  n..tabilities." 
.ays  Carlyle.  ^  It  is  easy  to  figure  the  scene ;  the  men  all 
clean  shaven,  in  the  clumsy  coats,  high  collars,  and  enor- 
mous neck-cloths  of  the  period,  the  ladies,  and  there  were 
naturally  more  ladies    ..an  men,  following  the  vn    tries  of 
fashion  in  "bishop"  sleeves  and  the  -pretty  church-and- 
stnte  bonnets,"  that  seemed  to  Hunt,  at  times,  "to  think 
through  all  their   ribbons."     We  call  that  kind  of  bonnet 
"coal-scuttle"  now,  but  Maclise's  portrait  of  L.ady  Morgan 
trying  hers  on  before  a  glass  justifies  Hunt's  epithet.     The 
lecturer  was  the  lean,  wiry  type  of  Scot,  within  an  inch  of 
six  feet.     In  face,  he  was  not  the  bearded,  broken-down, 
broken-hearted   Cariyle   of    the    Fry   photograph,   but   the 
younger  Carlyle  of  the   Emerson  portrait.      Clean-shaven, 
as  was  then  the  fashion,  the  determination  of  the  lower  jaw 
lying   bare,   the   thick   black   hair  brushed  carelessly  and 
coming  down  low  on  the  bony,  jutting  forehead,  violet-blue 
eyes,  deep-set  and  alert,  the  whole  face  shows  the  Scot  and 
the  peasant  in  every  line.     It  was  a  striking  face,  the  union 
of  black  hair,  blue  eyes,  and,  usually,  ruddy  color  on  the 
high  cheek  bones,  "as  if  painted  ...  at  the  plough's  tail." 
Lady  Eastlake  remarked,  and  she  w.is  an  artist.     Harriet 
Martineau  notes  that  he  was  "yellow  as  a  guinea."  but  this 
would  be  due  to  some  temporary  gastric  disturbance.'     He 
was  very  nervous,  as  was  most  natural,  and  stood  with  down- 
cast eyes,  his  fingers  picking  at  the  desk  before  him.     At  the 

»  Mr.  Cro7ier  remarked  the  ruddiness  of  Carlyi^-s  face,  even  n 
extreme  old  age.  .See  John  Heattie  Crozier.  .1/,.  Inner  /.,/e,  p.  ,8j, 
I-ond..  1898;  and  also  Mtv.oirs  of  La<iy  Eastlake,  cap.  vii.  p.  ,,c 
Lond.,  1895. 


M 


'^\ 


XX 


LECTURES  OA'  JlEkOES 


beginning,  his  speech  wai  broken,  and  his  throat  was  dry, 
drink  as  he  would ;  but  his  desperate  determination  not  to 
break  down  curried  him  throujjh.  The  society  people  were 
"  very  humane  "  to  him,  and  the  lecturer  had  a  message  for 
them ;  his  matter  was  new,  his  manner  was  interesting ;  he 
knew  his  subject.  The  rugged  Scottish  accent  came  like  a 
welcome  draught  of  caller  air  from  the  moorlands  of  (lallo- 
way,  to  the  dwellers  in  London  drawing-rooms;  and  "they 
were  not  a  little  astonished  when  the  wild  Annandale  voice 
grew  high  and  earnest." 

No  report  of  this  course  has  come  down,  but  Carlyle 
admits  in  a  letter  to  his  brother  John,  that  "  they  went  off 
not  without  effect."  His  wife's  postscript  puts  the  matter  in 
the  true  light :  "  I  do  not  fuid  thnt  my  husband  has  given 
you  any  adecjuate  notion  of  the  success  of  his  lectures ;  but 
you  will  make  large  allowance  for  toe  known  modesty  of  the 
man.  Nothing  he  has  ever  tried  seems  to  mo  to  have  car- 
ried such  conviction  to  the  public  heart  tlv.t  he  is  a  real 
man  of  genius  and  worth  being  kept  alive  at  a  moderate 
rate."  Mr:..  Carlyle  knew,  for  she  was  wfil)  enough  to 
attend  the  last  four  lectures  and  "did  not  faint."  The 
result  in  money  was  £\n  after  all  expenses  were  paid, 
and  they  were  heavy ;  and  this  sum  put  the  Carlyle 
household  beyond  the  fear  of  want,  "-ong  after,  Carlyle 
remembered  the  pleasure  of  coming  home  from  the  first 
lecture  and  handing  his  wife  and  her  mother  a  gowden 
guinea  each,  like  a  medal  struck  to  commemorate  his 
triumph. 

The  success  of  their  bold  enterprise  encouraged  Carlyle 
and  his  friends  to  try  again ;  and  the  following  year  they 
undertook  a  course,  double  the  magnitude  of  the  first. 
Instead  of  six  lectures,  the  author  of  Tlu  French  Revolu- 
tion, a  book  which  was  beginning  to  be  talked  about,  was  to 
give  a  course  of  twelve,  at  a  charge  of  two  guineas  a  head, 


INTKOnVCTlON 


XXI 


instead  of  one.  The  theme  was  the  History  of  Literature/ 
or,  as  ti  lecturer  himself  put  it,  unofFicially,  "about  all 
things  i.  the  world;  '•  >  whole  spiritual  history  of  man 
from  the  earliest  times  to  ;he  present."  Carlyle  was  some- 
limes  in  doubt,  his  wife  tells  us,  as  to  whether  his  audience 
thought  he  was  pi\  inj;  thtni  enough  for  their  guine.n ;  but 
surely  such  a  progranune  must  have  satisfied  the  greediest. 

This  time  his  preparation  was  careful.     Although  he  had 
not  made  up  his  mir.d,  even  as  late  as  February,  what  he 
should  lecture  on,  he  was  reading  Dante  daily  and  hoped 
"to  gi\e  a  .sharp  lecture  on   him  for  one."     A  fortnight 
later,   he   tells   Aitken    that   his  main   business   is  getting 
something  ready  in  the  shape  of   lectures ;   and  when   he 
announced  to  Mrs.  Aitken  the  success  of  the  first  of  the 
scries,  he  couples  the  "  much  preparation  "  with  the  "  trem- 
bling "  that  always  went  before,  and  was,  in  part,  the  secret 
of  his  success.     He  rubbed  up  his  Thucydides  and  Herod- 
otus, and  found  profit  in  the  labor  ;  but  much  less  in  reading 
Nitbuhr  and  Michelet.     A  better  lecfire-room  than  Willis's, 
ciuiet,  lighted  from  the  ceiling,  properly  seated,  was  secured 
at  17  Edward  St.,  Portman  Square.     In  March,  Wilson  and 
Darwin  are  again  busy,  engineering;    but  there  seems  to 
h;ive  been  little  ditliculty  in  getting  an  audience.     As  the 
lime  drew  near,  Carlyle  .<?re\v  nervous,  as  usual,  but  he  felt 
that  this  was  "the  harvest  of  the  whole  y     r,"  and  he  was 
not  going  to  allow  mere  panic  to  keep  him  from  filling  his 
garner. 

1  These  are  the  subjects  and  dates  of  the  various  lectures,  as  given 
in  I'rofessor  Greene's  edition  of  Anstey's  reports ; 

Ucture  I.  Atril  z-,tl,.  i  .rst  Period.  Of  Literature  in  General  — 
Unguage.  Tradition,  Religions,  Races  — The  Greeks:  Their  Charac- 
ter in  History,  Their  Knrtiine,  T'.rformance  —  Mythologies  —  Origin  of 
Gods. 

lecture  II.  A/„y  .,//,.  First  Veriod  — con/htu.,/.  Homer:  The 
Heroic  Ages— From  .tschylus  to  Socrates  —  Decline  of  the  Greeks. 


IS*:.. 


iff 

»■■  > 


I    p 


xxu 


LECTURES   OJV  HEROES 


Portman  Square  was  not  so  convenient  as  Almack's  for 
the  fashionable  people  ;  but  the  fashionable  people  came 
again.  It  was  a  notable  gathering.  The  Tinus  reporter, 
who  may  have  been  Thackeray,  observed  "the  cultivated 
and  intelligent  aspect  of  the  audience,  of  whom  an  unusually 
large  proportion  appeared  to  be  of  a  high  order,  both  as  to 
station  and  education,  and  in  whom  there  was  consequently 
a  great  number  of  pleasing  and  expressive  countenances." 
In  the  raffish  Examiner,  Leigh  Hunt  "  suspects  "  '« it  would 
not  be  easy  to  match  the  audiences  which  this  gentleman 
has  brought  together,  either  on  this  or  the  former  occasion, 
for  a  union  of  what   is   usually  called  respectability  with 


i  ^    ! 


lecture  ITT.  May  "jth.  First  VexioA  — continued.  The  Romans: 
Their  t:haracter,  Thei'  Fortune,  What  They  Did—  From  Virgil  to 
Tacitus  —  End  of  I'aganism. 

I.ecture  IV.  May  wth.  .Second  Period.  Middle  Ages  — Chris- 
tianity; Faith  —  Inventions  —  Pious  Foundations —  Pope  Ilildebrand 

—  ('rusades  —  Troubadours  —  Niebelungen  Lied. 

lecture  V.  May  14///.  .Second  Period  —  continued.  Dante  —  The 
Italians  —  Catholicism  —  Purgatory. 

Lecture  VI.  May  x'f^th.     Second  Period  — (■<'«//;/«<■(/.    The  Spaniards 

—  Chivalry  —  fireatness  of  the  Spanish  Nation  — Cervantes,  His  Life, 
His  Hook  —  Lope  —  Calderon — Protestantism   md  the  Dutch  War. 

Lecture  VII.  May  2\st.  Second  V'^xwA  — continued.  The  Ger- 
mans —  What  They  Have  Done  —  Reformation  —  Luther  —  Ulrich 
von   I  lutten  —  Erasmus. 

lecture  VIII.  May  2^th.  Second  Period  —  (-(>«/'/««,v/.  The  Eng- 
lish :  Their  Origin,  Their  Work  and  Destiny — Elizabethan  Era  — 
Shakespeare  —  John   Knox  —  Milton  —  P.eginning  of  Scepticism. 

Lecture  IX.  May  2%t/i.  Third  Period.  Voltaire  —  The  French  — 
Scepticism  —  P'rom  Rabelais  to  Rousseau. 

lecture  X.  June  i,f/.  Third  Period  —  continued.  Eighteer  Cen- 
tury in  England —  Whitfield  —  Swift — Sterne  —  Johnson  —  Hume. 

Ixxture  XL  Friday,  June  ?,th.  Third  Period  —  r(W/'/;/7/i.v/.  Con- 
summation of  .Scepticism —  W'ertherism  ^  The  French  Revolution. 

Lt'iture  XII  June  I  !///.  Fourth  Pe>iod.  Of  Modern  (krmnn 
Literature  —  Goethe  aiid   His  Works. 


INTKODUCTIO.V 


XXltl 


selectness  of  taste  and  understanding."     The  lecturer  him- 
self is  of  the  same  opinion.    "  My  audience  was  supposed  to 
be  the  best  for  rank,  beauty  and  intelligence,  ever  collected 
in  London.     I  had  bonnie  braw  dames,  Ladies  this.  Ladies 
that,  though  I  dared  not  look  at  them  lest  they  should  put 
me  out.     I  had  old  men  of  four  score;  men  middle-aged, 
with  fine,  steel-grey  beards  ;  young  men  of  the  Universities^ 
of  the  law  profession,  all  sitting  quite  mum  there,  and  the 
Annandale  voice  goUying  at  them."     The  lecturer's  wife  is 
not  to  be  described  as  gushing  ;  but  she  goes  beyond  even 
Carlyle  himself.     "  The  audience  is  fair  in  quantity  (more 
than  fair  .  .  .),  and  in  quality  it  is  unsurpassable  ;  there  are 
women   so  beautiful    and    intelligent,   that   they   look    like 
emanations  from  the  moon ;  and  men  whose  faces  are  his- 
tories,  in   which    one    may  read   with  ever  new  interest." 
Maurice  was  of  this  audience  and  confessed  himself  more 
edified  by  the  lectures  than  by  anything  he  had  heard  for 
a  long  while.'     Monckton  Milnes  wrote  to  Aubrey  de  Vere 
of  the  interest  they  aroused.     "  He  talks  as  graphically  as 
his  French  Revolution;   his  personality  is  most  attractive, 
i'here  he  stands  simple  as  a  child,  and  his  happy  thought 
dances  on  his  lips,  and  in  his  eyes,  and  takes  word  and  goes 
away,   and  he   bids  it  (lod   speed,  whatever  it  may  be."^ 
Handsome  George  Ticknor,  enjoying  himself  very  much  in 
London,  found   time  to  look  in  at  the  tenth   lecture,   just 
l)ffore  he  took  ship  for  the  United  States  ;  he  was  only  mod- 
erately pleased  with  Carlyle.     He  thought  him  ugly  and  his 
accent  unpleasant ;  but  he  remarked  the  careful  preparation, 
although  the  lecturer  spoke  without  notes.    "  He  was  impress- 
ive, I  think,  though  such  lecturing  could  not  very  well  be 
popular;    and  in  some   parts,  if  he   were  not  poetical,  he 
was  picturesque.     He  was  nowhere  obscure,  nor  were  his 

Tnr  IJjc  ,y  ludfiuk  Ih-nison  M.iurue,  I,  250.     J.oiul.,  1S84. 
2  Life  of  Lord  Ifoii;^hlon,  \,  210, 


It    ; 


;i:i 


^   !« 

-i 

I-  ■ 

'?« 

I    1 


XXIV 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


II 


i   ^ 


sentences  peculiarly  constructed,  though  some  of  them,  no 
doubt,  savored  of  his  peculiar  manner."  ^  The  success  of 
the  course  was  most  unmistakable.  At  the  last,  Carlyle  had 
some  of  his  audience,  ladies  undoubtedly,  weeping  ;  others, 
undoubtedly  men,  wanted  to  give  him  a  dinner  to  express 
their  sense  of  obligation ;  but  he  declined  the  honor.  More 
lasting  than  "the  glory  of  Portman  Square"  was  the  net 
result  in  money,  nearly  300  guineas.  The  London  season 
and  the  cosmic  programme  for  1838  included,  as  two  of 
their  chief  events,  the  coronation  of  the  girl  queen  of 
nineteen  and  the  lectures  of  Thomas  Carlyle. 

Of  this  course,  we  know  more  than  of  any  other,  except 
Heroes.  Thackeray,  we  may  be  almost  sure,  attended  the 
first  lecture,  and  wrote  the  fine  compliments  in  the  Times, 
which  pit  ised  Carlyle  so  much.  Leigh  Hunt  reported  him 
in  the  Examiner,  after  a  fashion  that  pleased  him  much  less. 
Instead  of  giving  a  clear  summary  of  what  was  said,  Hunt 
argued  in  print  with  the  lecturer  and  disputed  his  various 
propositions.  The  most  characteristic  thing  is  his  disallow- 
ing Carlyle's  praise  of  thrift,  after  borrowing  two  of  Carlyle's 
hard-earned  guineas.  The  Examiner  reports  have  a  distinct 
value  and  interest  ;  but  there  is  an  even  fuller  account  to  be 
had.  Sterling  laughed  with  Caroline  Fox  over  the  ladies 
who  attended  Carlyle's  lectures  and  took  notes,  not  of  the 
uioughts,  but  of  the  dates,  "  and  these  all  wrong  ";  but  there 
was  another  taker  of  notes  at  this  course,  who  worked  to 
some  purpose. 

In  1892,  Professor  J.  Reay  Greene  edited,  with  preface 
and  notes,  "  Lectures  on  the  History  of  Literature  Delivered 
by  Thomas  Carlyle  April  to  July,  1838."  ^  The  account  the 
editor  gives  of  them  is  not  quite  clear  ;    we  would  gladly 

^  Life  of  George  Ticknor,  sub  dat.  June  i,  183S. 

*  Significant  extracts  had  been  published,  in  an  article  by  Professor 
Dowden,  in  The  Nineteenth  Century,  April,  188 1. 


INTRO  D  UC  TION 


XXV 


know  more.  Apparently  they  were  taken  down  in  shorthand, 
by  Mr.  Thomas  Chisholm  Anstey,  a  Roman  Catholic  bar- 
rister, who  became  M.  P.  for  Youghal.  How  the  manuscript 
travelled  to  India  is  not  explained ;  and  no  notice  is  taken 
of  an  instructive  statement  of  Mrs.  Carlyle's  in  regard  to  it. 
Writing  to  her  husband  on  Sept.  lo,  1838,  she  says  of 
Sartor  Resartus,  then  in  its  first  English  edition  :  "  The 
individual  most  agog  about  it  seems  to  be  the  young  Cath- 
olic whose  name,  I  now  inform  and  beg  you  to  remember, 
is  Mr.  T.  Chisholm  Anstey.  He  sat  with  me  one  forenoon, 
last  week,  for  a  whole  hour  and  a  half,  rhapsodising  about 
you  all  the  while;  a  most  judicious  young  Catholic,  as  I 
ever  saw  or  dreamt  of.  .  .  .  He  has  written  an  article  on 
you  for  the  '  Dublin  Review.'  which  is  to  be  sent  to  me  as 
soon  as  published,  and  the  Jesuits,  he  says,  are  enchanted 

with  all  they  find  in  you I  told  Mr.  Chisholm  Anstey 

I  could  not  give  him  the  lecture-book  as  I  was  copying  it. 
'  You  copying  it  ! '  he  exclaimed  in  enthusiasm  ;  '  indeed 
you  shall  not  have  the  toil ;  I  will  copy  it  for  you  ;  it  will 
be  a  pleasure  to  me  to  write  them  all  a  second  time ! '  So 
you  may  give  him  the  ten  shillings  ;  for  he  actually  took 
away  the  book,  and  what  I  had  done  of  xi,  par  7'i-e  force."  ^ 
From  this,  it  is  reasonable  to  infer  that  Mr.  Anstey  had 
written  out  his  notes  in  full,  shown  them  to  Carlyle,  who 
wanted  to  keep  them  and  employed  Ivs  wife  as  copyist. 
This  proceeding  throws  light  on  Ca.Iyle's  publication  of 
Heroes.  With  the  exception  of  the  ninth  lecture,  which  Mr. 
Anstey  was  too  ill  to  attend,  these  reports  are  complete.  All 
Carlyle's  lectures  occupied  an  hour,  seldom  ...ore;  and, 
compared  with  Iferoes,  these  of  '38  fill  only  half  the  space  in 
print.  They  are  valuable  for  aiding  us  to  understand  the 
last  course  ;  and,  as  showing  the  difference  between  Carlyle 
the  speaker  and  Carlyle  the  writer. 

1  Z.  and  M.  I,  107. 


11 


il 


4Wj 


i 


■Ml 


•     !! 


XXVI 


LECTURES  OJV  HEROES 


\ 


Between  the  meagre  reports  of  Leigh  Hunt  and  the  fuller 
accounts  of  Anstey  there  are  curious  and  significant  dis- 
crepancies.    For  instance,  Anstey  makes  Carlyle  call  Philip 
of  Macedon  "  a  strong  active  man  " ;  while  Hunt  says  "  a 
managing,  diagrammatic  man."     The  merest  tyro  can  decide 
which  is  the  real  Carlylese.     Again,  Anstey  reports  Carlyle 
as  saying  in  regard  to  the  Greeks  :  "  They  recognised  a  des- 
tiny, a  great  dumb  black  power,  ruling  time,  which  knew 
nobody  for  its  master,  and  in  its  decrees  was  as  inflexible 
as  adamant,  and  every  one  knew  it  was  there."     Hunt's 
version  is  :  "  The  Greek  religion  which  he  looks  upon  as 
originating  in  the  "worship  of  heroes"  ultimately  "shaped 
by  allegory  "  with  Destiny  at  the  back  of  it  (a  great  dumb 
black  divinity  that  had  no  pity  on  them,  and  they  knew  not 
what  it  was,  only  that  it  pitied  neither   gods    nor  men)." 
Here,   it  seems  to  me.  Hunt  comes  nearer  to  what  was 
actually  uttered.      Instances  might  be  multipucd  to  show 
that  Anstey's  reports  must  be  taken  with  great  caution  as 
representing  the  very  words  spoken   by   Carlyle  in   1838. 
This  was  the  longest  of  the  four  courses,  and  the  best  paid ; 
and  by  the  end  of  the  year  Carlyle  was  looking  forward  to  a 
third  course,  which  should  bring  him  "board-wages"  for 
another  twelvemonth. 

In  April,  1839,  he  was  able  to  tell  Emerson  that  he  was 
richer  than  he  had  been  for  ten  years  ;  but,  though  he  was 
no  longer  driven  to  it  by  poverty,  he  was  again  to  lecture. 
His  subject  was  chosen:  "The  Revolutions  of  xModern 
Europe."  The  place  was  again  Portman  Square  ;  the  hour, 
from  three  to  four  on  Wednesdays  and  Saturdays,  begin- 
ning on  the  first  Wednesday  in  May;  the  number  of  the 
lectures,  six.' 

1  As  to  the  sul)jects  of  the  lectures,  I  have  been  .ihle  tn  find  little 
beyond  Carlyle's  own  statement  th?t  Protestantism,  Puritanism,  and 
the  French  Revolution  were  to  have  two  apiece.    See  E.-Corr.  I,  230. 


INTkOnuCTWX 


xxvu 


Of  this  course  we  know  tlie  least  of  all.     Leigh  Hunt 
was  very  late  for  the  first  lecture,  because  his  omnibus  ran 
a  waiting  race  with  another ;  and  he  reports  it  in  one  vajjue 
sentence.     The    second,    on  "Protestantism.   Faith    in    the 
IJible,   Luther,   Knox,  (iustavus  Adolphus."   he  reports  at 
some  length  ; '    and  one   of   Mrs.   C:arlyle's    lively  letters  ''■ 
deals  with  some  of  its  aspects.     The  two  are  worth  compar- 
ing.    Hunt  notices  his  manner  and  its  effect  on  his  audience. 
"There  is  frequently  a  noble  homeliness,  a  passionate  sim- 
plicity and   familiarity  of   speech  in  the    language  of   Mr. 
Carlyle,  which  gives  startling  effect  to  his  sincerity,  and  is 
evidently  received  by  his  audience,  especially  the  fashionable 
part  of  it  (as  one  may  know  by  the  increased  silence),  with 
a  feeling  that  would  smile  if  it  could,  but  which  is  fairly 
dashed  into  a  submission,  grateful  for  the  novelty  and  the 
excitement  by  the  hard  force  of  the  very  blows  of  truth." 
One  of  the  passages  which   had  this  effect  was  Carlyle's 
denunciation  of  the  degenerate  Papacy.      The  heartiness  of 
the  speaker's  convictions,  uttered  in  simple,  truthful  words, 
had  full  weight  with  his  audience.     "  E\  cry  manly  face 
seems  to  knit  its  lips,  out  of  a  severity  of  s\mpathy,  whether 
it  would  or  no;  and  all  the  pretty  church-and-state  bonnets 
seem  to  think  through  all  their  ribbons."     Hunt  was  plainly 
a  most  sympathetic  listciK  r.  sensitive  to  moods  and  impres- 
sions.    One  paragraph  of  commLndaticm   and  summary  is 
given  to  the  account  of  Luther,  which  shows  much  the  same 
treatment  as  in  Heroes. 

Mrs.   Carlyle   is   not  concerned  with   the   matter  of  the 
lecture,  but  with  its  effect.     Writing  to  old  Mrs.  Carlyle  at 
Scotsbrig  on  May  6,  she  says:   "Our  ;,econd  lecture  'trans 
pired '   yesterday,   and   with    surprising    success  —  literally 
surprising,  for  he  was  imputing  the  profound  attention  with 

^  The  F.xaminn-,  Smulay,  May  \i,  iSjrj. 
2Z.  a  W.J/.  I,  112. 


XXVIU 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


1     : 


I*- 


Ml 


I 


which  the  audience  listened,  to  an  awful  sympathising  expec- 
tation on  their  part  of  a  momentary  break-down,  when  all  at 
once  they  broke  into  loud  plaudits,  and  he  thought  they  must 
all  have  gone  clean  out  of  their  w.ts !  But,  as  does  not 
happen  always,  the  majority  were  in  this  instance  in  the 
right,  and  it  was  he  that  was  out  of  his  wits  to  fancy  himself 
making  a  stupid  lecture,  when  the  fact  is  he  really  cannot 
be  stupid  if  it  were  to  save  his  iife."  She  did  not  think  he 
was  talking  his  best;  but  she  heard  "splendid,"  "devilish 
fine,"  "most  true"  "heartily  ejaculated,"  on  all  sides. 
"The  most  practical  good  feature  in  the  business  was  a 
considerable  increase  of  hearers  —  even  since  last  day  ;  the 
audience  seems  to  me  larger  than  last  year,  and  even  more 
distinguished."  As  in  the  days  of  Coleridge,  the  whole 
street  was  blocked  with  carriages  of  people  who  maintained 
servants  in  livery.  The  English  aristocracy  are  the  most 
open  to  light  of  any  class  Carlyle  has  to  do  with,  thinks 
Mrs.  Carlyle;  and  gives  an  instance  of  their  openness  to 
truth.  "Even  John  Knox,  though  they  must  have  been 
very  angry  at  him  for  demolishing  so  much  beautiful  archi- 
tecture, which  is  quite  a  passion  with  the  English,  they  were 
quite  willing  to  let  good  be  said  of,  so  that  it  were  indis- 
putably true.  Nay,  it  was  in  reference  to  Knox  that  they 
first  applauded  yesterday."  The  whole  letter  shows  sincere 
elation  at  her  husband's  success. 

Hunt's  notice  of  the  third  lecture,'  the  first  on  Puritanism, 
is  a  mild  rebuttal  of  Carlyle's  special  pleading  for  Cromwell. 
To  blame  Charles  for  deception,  while  protesting  that  Crom- 
well could  not  get  on  without  it,  seemed  inconsistent.  Hunt 
is  very  careful  to  qualify  his  disapproval,  in  such  a  way  as 
this  :  "  Had  Mr.  Carlyle  taken  pains  to  draw  a  distinction  ho 
might  doubtless  have  done  so."  Or  else  he  softens  his  remon- 
strance with  compliments  like  this.     "  Not  that  Mr.  Carlyle 

1  The  Examiner,  .Sunday,  May  12,  1839. 


INTRODUCTION 


XXIX 


is  ultimately  intolerant  to  this  victim  of  i  father's  king-craft 
and  the  rising  light  of  the  age.  He  never  is  to  anything  in 
a  hard  inhuman  sense.  He  is  too  wise  and  kind  a  man. 
Hut  as  we  have  just  observed,  we  think  it  due  from  him  to 
his  audience  to  explain  himself  on  occasions  like  these,  and 
not  to  run  the  chancr  of  their  going  away  with  mistaken 
impressions."  The  chief  impressions  which  Hunt  himself 
carried  away  from  this  lecture  were  Carlyle's  freedom  from 
prejudice  in  depicting  Puritanism,  "  which  would  have  made 
■3  world  a  planet  all  over  brambles,"  his  portraiture  of 
I'rynne  and  Laud,  his  doing  more  than  justice  to  Strafford, 
and  his  complete  silence  on  Vane  and  Milton.  He  notes 
that  the  audience  seems  to  increase  at  every  lecture;  and 
(liiotes  characteristic  sentences,  such  as  "  iJoth  sides  mean 
something  that  is  right  in  all  battles"  and  "All  revolutions 
are  the  utterance  of  some  long-felt  truth  in  the  minds  of 
men."  It  is  plain  that  Carlyle  is  once  more  traversing 
well-trodden  ground. 

The  Examiner  for  Sunday,  May  19,  contains  a  brief 
apology  for  omitting  to  notice  the  lectures,  and  promises  to 
report  them  next  week,  when  they  are  over.  The  promise 
is  well  kept,  and  the  report  given  is  one  of  Hunt's  best. 

}{e  again  apologizes  for  having  missed  the  greater  part  of 
the  fourth  lecture,  but  he  preserves  the  title,  "  The  English 
Restoration,  Europe  till  1789,  Voltaire  and  Arkwright."  His 
recollections  are  hazy.  The  lecturer,  for  one  thing,  broke 
up  •'  the  wretched  administration  in  France  under  Cardinal 
I)u  Bois,  like  so  much  tinsel  paper,  or  an  old  bonnet,  or 
rather  like  an  old  hair-powder  box  in  which  the  powder  was 
poisoned,  —  at  once  the  lightest  and  guiltiest  thing  in  the 
world."  He  defends  Voltaire  against  Carlyle's  charge  of 
being  "  a  mere  scoffer  "  by  adducing  his  "  sympathies  with 
the  pleasurable  and  the  good-natured,"  and  mentions  his 
service  to  the  Calas  family.     He  does  not  deny  that  Voltaire 


I. 


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V »     tI 


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XXX 


LFX  TURKS  ON  HEROES 


J  :  ;i 


% 


was  a  "  Frenchman  all  over,"  but  urges  in  extenuation  of 
this  offence,  that  "a  Frenchman,  with  all  his  faults,  has 
infinite  social  virtues,  and  is  nr  small  constituent  part  of  the 
great  human  family,"  —  surely  a  reasonable  plea.  Arkwright, 
he  does  not  recall,  but  he  cannot  for'T--'  .  C.'arlyle  said  of 
the  melancholy  spectacle  of  a  hum;  iig  willing  \i  labor 

but  forced  to  starve,  — "  a  thing  not  endurable,  or  which 
ought  not  to  be  endurable,  to  human  eyes  "  ;  and  such  a 
calamity  as  does  not  occur  to  a  beast  of  the  field. 

The  Examiner  reports  of  the  last  two  lectures  are  so  full, 
and  preserve  so  many  of  Carlyle's  characteristic  sayings,  that 
they  are  given  here  except  for  the  omission  of  various  Skim- 
polean  disclaimers,  as  originally  printed. 

"The  fifth  lecture  (on  the  "  French  Revolution,  Faith  in 
the  Rights  of  Man,  Girondism,  France  till  1793,  Mirabeau, 
and  Roland")  was  "full  of  matter."  A  new  Duke,  as  good 
and  wise  as  he  of  As  Yon  Like  Jt,  would  have  been  glad  to 
"  cope  "  with  our  philosopher  on  this  subject.  The  French 
Revolution  he  described  as  the  catastrophe  of  many  past 
centuries,  the  fountain  of  many  that  are  to  come,  the  crown- 
ing phenomenon  of  our  modern  time.  Bayle  said  of  him- 
self, that  he  was  a  Protestant  "because  he  protested  against 
all  beliefs";  Mr.  Carlyle  is  a  Protestant  of  a  very  different 
sort  from  that ;  he  protests  only  against  pretended  beliefs ; 
and  he  considers  the  French  Revolution,  much  and  bitter 
fault  as  he  has  to  find  with  it,  as  a  consummation  of  Protes- 
tantism in  that  respect.  Luther,  he  says,  protested  against 
a  false  priesthood ;  Cromwell  (putting,  we  suppose,  the  man 
and  the  stconi  for  the  spirit  of  the  time  that  wielded  it) 
against  a  false  priesthood  and  kingship;  the  French  Revo- 
lution against  a  false  priesthood,  kingship,  and  noblesse.  It 
was  the  general  fearful  protestation  of  a  great  nation  against 
whatsoever  was  false  in  its  arrangements,  and  a  determina- 
tion to  have  them  rectified.     "  A  great  price  it  was,"  —  cries 


INTRODUCTION 


XXXI 


our  candid,  out-speaking  man  of  no  party  (for  such  he  is,  and 
let  his  great  truths  be  listened  to  accordingly);  — "a  great 
price  it  was,  but  for  a  thing  absolutely  needed ;  for  cost 
what  it  may,  men  must,  and  will  return  to  reality,  —  to  fact 
and  truth;  they  cannot   live   upon   shams"     The   French 
Revolution  began  appropriately  in  bankruptcy.     "  When  a 
delusion  has  no  money  in  its  purse,  it  must  die.     No  one 
will  pull  a  trigger,  or  write  a  pamphlet  for  it.     Nature  has 
said,  — Go!"     Unfortunately    the    French   thought  that  a 
Constitution  was  a  thing,  not  to  grow,  but  to  be  "  made." 
The   faith   in  that  extempore,   full-grown  creation  of   new 
habits,  ideas,  and  securities  was  the  product  of  a  sceptical 
logic  on  the  one  hand  (believing  i..  very  proportion  to  its 
notion  that  it  believed  nothing),  and  of  a  senti^nental  political- 
economy  on  the  other  (taking  the  self-complacency  for  the 
deed).     But  it  was  the  universal  faith  of  France ;  the  soul 
of  that  great  movement.     Hope  was  the  universal  feeling  ; 
all  men  believed  that  a  millennium  was  at  hand,  if  one  con- 
stitution were  "made."     The  Federation  of  the  Champ  de 
Mars  was  "a  strange  outbreak  of  child-like  hope  in  this 
sort";  the  constitution  was  made,  "and  sworn  to,  as  no 
made  constitution  can  ever  hope  to  be  again,  and  it  lasted 
simply  eleven  months."     This  is  the  reign  of  Constitutional- 
ism, called   more   strictly  Girondism.     The  "Girondists" 
were  analogous  to  the  Presbyterians,  the  "  Montagne  "  to 
the  Independents,  of  Cromwell's  time.     There  are  two  simi- 
lar parties  in  all  revolutions.     The  character  of  Louis  was 
that  of  a  man  "innocent  and  pitiable,  but  inert,  without 
will ;  incapable  of  being  saved."     The  lecturer  gave  a  slight 
sketch  of  the  progress  of  things  under  him,  till  the  Bastile 
fell,  "and  the  women  brought  him  to  Paris."     The  "  strong- 
est man"  of  the  eighteenth  century  was   Mirabeau,  — "a 
very  lion  for  strength,  —  unsubduable,  —  who  could  not  be 
beaten  down  by  difficulty  or  disaster,  but  would  always  rise 


U*  (  1 


w;\ 


If  'i 


XXXII 


LECTUKKS  OiW  JIEKOES 


\ 


%.' 


^ 


it 


again  :  —  an  institutive  man,  —  better  than  a  premeditative  ; 
your  profesHiunal  benefactor  of  mankind  being  always  a 
questionable  person."  Mirabeau  would  have  been  the  Crom- 
well of  the  French  Revolution  had  he  lived.  *'  A  gigantic 
heathen  was  he,  who  had  *  swallowed  all  formulas ' ;  —  a  man 
whom  we  must  not  love,  whom  we  cannot  h."4te,  and  can  only 
lament  over,  and  wonder  at."  Up  to  this  point,  concluded 
Mr.  Carlyle,  the  French  Revolution  resembled  the  English 
in  its  course  ;  but  the  rest  of  it  was  altogether  peculiar, 
unlike  anything  in  history  for  a  thousand  years  and  more." 
"The  concluding  lecture  (on  "  Sansculottism,  France  till 
1795,  Robespierre,  Danton.  Marat,  Napoleon,  Results  and 
Prospects")  added  little  new  to  the  one  just  noticed,  but 
was  perhaps  the  .nost  interesting  of  the  series,  from  the  num- 
ber of  portraits  painted.  Mr.  Carlyle  excused  the  French 
emigrant  noblesse,  as  men  who  could  not  think  otherwise 
than  they  did  in  domestic  politics  from  habit  and  breeding, 
but  strongly  condemned  them  for  calling  in  foreign  aid  and 
quitting  their  country.  If  they  were  compelled  in  this,  it 
was  only  by  their  want  of  patriotism.  Claiming  to  be 
worthy,  they  should  have  shown  how  they  could  still  interest 
their  country  and  stand  by  it ;  "  if  unworthy,  nnd  nobody 
would  stand  by  them,"  they  had,  to  be  sure,  '  nothing  to 
do  for  it,  but  to  go."  He  defended  the  Queen,  who  was 
accused  of  being  the  centre  of  all  the  intrigues,  and  thought 
her  life  the  most  tragical  on  record  ;  —  a  mistake  of  memory 
surrly.  Most  touching  was  Mr.  Carlyle's  story  of  the  needle 
she  borrowed  of  the  gaoler's  wife  the  night  before  her  death, 
that  she  might  mend  ^  her  clothes  and  be  decently  dressed 
at  the  scaffold.  The  lecturer,  we  think,  was  too  hard  upon 
the  Girondists,  in  ar.cusing  them  of  being  actuated,  in  their 
"  elegant   extracts "    of   constitutionalism,    by   nothing   but 

1  This  incident  impressed  Carlyle.     See  Memoirs  of  Lady  Eastlake, 
Marcl    3,  1844.     Lond.,  1895. 


INTROnrcTtOX 


XXXIII 


vanity.     Not   the  less,   however,  do   we  belipve  with   \fr. 
larlyle.  that  the  sterner  virtues  of  such  men  as  Danton  were 
required,  in  the  then  state  of  France,  to  overawe  interference 
and  K'ive  a  conscious  strength  to  every  man  that  had  an  arm ; 
and  so  -veil  did  the  lecturer  defend  that  homely  old  hero  of 
the  Revolution,  one  of  its  supposed  "wretches."  that  his 
audience,  though,  from  their  fashionable  aspect,  supposed  to 
be  three  paits    Tory,  heartily  respc  Jed  to  the  manly  call 
upon  their  sympat-^ies.     •'  Poo,-  Marat  "  also,  even  he,  with 
all  that  was  repulsive  in  him,  found  sympathy,  because  he 
himself  was  not  without  it;  and  justice  was  done  to  the 
I     supposed  reprobate  but  real  "  formalist  "  and  moral  pedant, 
I     Robespierre,  who  was  nevertheless  ultimately  given  up  as  a 
"  miserable  screech-owi  fanatic,"  that  had  a  face  which  Mira- 
beau  described  as  that  of  a  "  cat  Kipping  vinegar."     "  Let 
my  name  be  blasted,"  said  Danton,  "  so  that  France  be  free." 
t    'That  is  a  virtue,"  said  Mr.  Carlyle,  -which  goes  higher 
than  many  a  lauded  virtue.    Clean  washed  decency  may  stand 
I    rebuked  beside   it."     We  wish  we  could  agree  as  heartily 
I    with  what  he  said  respecting  "sin  "  and  "God's  judgment." 
I    N:;poleon  was  depreciated  in  proportion,  because  he  seemed 
I    to  have"nc   sympathies";  qualities,  truly,  in  which  great 
soldiers  have  never  been  apt  to  abound.     Napoleon's  healthy 
bronze  at  all  events  enabled  him  to  play  a  much  grander 
part  than  the  dreary,  bad  blood  of  Cromwell.     iJut  we  should 
■     do  great  injustice  to  these  lectures  if  we  did  not  conclude  by 
;    saying,  that  where  Mr.  Carlyle  piqued  the  understanding  to 
differ  with  him  now  and  then,  through  its  very  desire  to  have 
-    the  pride  and  pleasure  of  agreeing  with  him  in  all  things,  he 
,    obtained  its  admiration  a  hundred-fold  at  all  other  tim^s; 
I    nor  can  we  now  take  leave  of  the  series  of  lectures  this  yeari 
i    without  wishing  there  was  an  autumn  as  well  as  a  spring 
course,  to  set  the  heads  of  his  hearers  thinking,  and  their 
hearts  swelling  with  the  love  of  truth  and  their  species  " 


f 


I         ! 


4.:  y 


ii 


xxxiv 


I.KCTVPES  ON  UK  ROES 


t 


i' 


As  usP  \I  larlylf  was  KlaU  when  the  course  was  over,  though 
he  mip'     have  been  satisfied  "with  tolerable  /<M  and  % 
clr       ..n  of  very  nearly  /:3oo."     "  My  audience."  he  tells 
his  jrother  John,  '•  was  visibly  more  numerous  than  ever, 
and  of  more  distinguished  people;  my  sorrow  in  delivery 
was  less ;  my  remorse  after  delivery  was  much  greater.     I 
gave  one  very  bad  lecture  (as  I  thought) ;  the  last  but  one. 
It  was  on  the  French  Revolution.     I  was  dispirited  —  in 
miserable  health.     My  audience,  mainly  Tory,  could  not  be 
expected  to  sympathise  with  mc.     In  short,  I  felt,  after  it 
was  all  over,  like  a  man  who  had  been  robbing  hen-roosts. 
In  which  circumstances,  I,  the  day  before  my  finale,  hired  a 
swift  horse,  galloped  out  to   Harrow  like  a  Faust's  fiight 
through  an  ocean  of  green,  went  in  a  !  ind  of  r.ige  to  the 
room  the  next  day,  and  made  on  Sansculottism  itself  very 
considerably  the  nearest  approach  to  a  good  lecture  they 
ever  got  of  me,  carried  the  whole  business  glowing  before 
me,  and  ended  half  an  hour  beyond  my  time,  with  universal 
decisive  applause  sufficient  for  the  occasion."  >     Our  lecturer 
was  not  a  man  to  brag :  but  the  facts  are  almost  too  strong 
for  his  nodesty.     His  grudging  admissions  are  set  in  their 
true  light  by  his  best  critic,  his  kt-en.   clear-headed  wife. 
Writing  to  his  mother,  there  is  no  re.ison  why  siie  should 
restrain  her  pride.     "  The  last  lectur.  was  indeed  the  most 
splendid  he  ever  delivered,  and  the  people  were  all  in  a 
heart-fever  over  it ;  on  all  sides  of  me  people,  who  did  not 
know  me,  and  might  therefore  be  believed,  were  expressing 
their  raptures  audibly.     One  man  (a  person  of  originally 
large  fortune,  which  he  had  got  through  in  an  uncommon 
way,  namely,  in  acts  of  benevolence)  was  saying,  '  He 's  a 
glorious  fellow ;  I  love  the  fellow's  very  faults,'  etc.,  etc. ; 
while  another  answered,  '  Aye,  faith,  is  he  ;   a  fine,  wild, 
chaotic  cnap,'  and  so  on  all  over  the  whole  room.     In  short 

1  C.L.L.  I,  171.  corrected. 


ts'rK'O'HTcrioN 


XXXV 


we  left  the  concern  in  :i  sort  of  whirlwind  of  'glory,'  not 
without  'bread.'"  She  notes  a  carriage  with  the  Royal 
arms  and  liveries,  which  had  hroujjht  a  court-official  to 
I'ortnian  Square ;  and,  in  s  ul  contrast  to  her  triumph,  the 
widow  of  Edward  Irving  sitting  opposite  in  her  weeds.  As 
a  girl,  she  had  loved  Irving  herself:  this  woman  had  taken 
him  from  her ;  Irving  had  had  his  brief  day  of  glory,  and 
now  he  was  beyond  it  all.  The  letter  ends  sadly ;  the  sun 
his  gone  under  a  cloud.  Kven  clearer  testimony  to  the 
success  of  this  course  is  given  by  C'arlyle  himself,  uncon- 
sciously. Ten  day  s  after  it  was  ended,  he  wrote  to  Emerson 
much  as  he  had  to  his  brother ;  but  he  has  discovered  that 
public  speaking  is  an  art,  and  he  thinks  of  learning  it  by 
practice.  "Repeatedly  it  has  come  into  my  head,  that  [ 
should  go  to  America  this  very  Fall  and  beiecture  you  from 
Xorth  to  South  till  I  learned  it." '  This  shows  how  Emer- 
son's invitation  still  tempted  Carlyle;  and  the  temptation 
lasted  until  the  publication  of  Heroes.  America  remained 
Carlyle's  Carcassonne. 

II 

These  three  courses  were  I.ut  the  three  steps  by  which  he 
ascended  to  his  last  and  greatest  triumph,  the  course  On 
We/yies.  Every  year  he  gained  in  mastery  over  himself  and 
bis  subject  and  the  art  of  public  speaking ;  every  year  his 
kudience  was  larger,  more  distinguished,  and  more  enthu- 
liistic.  His  last  course  was  his  best,  and  he  forsook  his 
'  new  profession  "  at  the  very  moment  of  his  greatest  success. 
h-  looked  upon  his  performance  on  the  platform  as  a 
'  mixture  of  prophecy  and  play-acting "  ;  felt  the  taint  of 
[ismcerity  which  seems  to  haunt  oratory ;  and,  as  he  could 
Ive  without  it,  he  gave  it  up. 

'  K.-Corr.  I,  252. 


W:.= 


\    i 


XXXVl 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


■I  1 


('!■' 


Heroes  took  shape   in  Carlyle's  mind   within  four  days, 
between  the  27th  of  February  and  the  2d  of  March,  1840. 
On  the  first  date  he  writes  to  his  brother  John  :    "  I   am 
beginning  seriously  to  meditate  my  Coiine  of  Lectures,  and 
have  even,  or  seem  to  have  got,  the  primordium  of  a  subject 
in  me,  — the'  not  nameable  as  yet."     On  the  second  date 
he  is  able  to  give  the  course  in  outline  :  "  My  subject  for 
Lecturing  on  ought  hardly  yet  to  be  named ;  lest  evil  befall 
it.     I  am  to  talk  about  gods,  prophets,  priesis,  kings,  poets, 
teachers  {six  sorts  of  men)  ;  and  may  probably  call  it  '  On 
the  Heroic'     Odin,  Mahomet,  Cromwell,  are  three  of  my 
figures ;  I  mean  to  show  that  '  Heroworship  never  ceases,'  that 
it  is  at  bottom  the  main  or  only  kind  of  worship."     On  All 
Fools'  Day  he  calls  on  Emerson  to  sympathize  with  him  on 
his  "  frightful  outlook  "  in  having  to  give  a  course  of  lectures 
'"On  Heroes  and  Hero-Worship,'  — from  Odin  to  Robert 
Burns  " ;  and  on  April  8,  he  announces  the  title  in  its  pres- 
ent form,  except  for  one  word,  and  calls  it  "  a  great,  deep, 
and  wide  subject,  if  I  were  in  heart  to  do  it  justice." 

Just  how  he  prepared  for  this  course  has  never  been  made 
quite  clear.  Neither  Mr.  Traill '  nor  Mr.  Gosse,^  his  latest 
editors,  explain  the  matter,  or  establish  the  relation  between 
the  spoken  lectures  and  the  written  book.  That  it  is  now 
possible  to  do  both  is  due  to  the  courtesy  of  Mr.  Alexander 
Carlyle,  who  has  made  for  the  present  tdition  extracts  from 
his  great  kinsman's  unpublished  letters,  which  place  the 
matter  beyond  a  doubt. 

Froude  gives  a  hint,  quoting  from  Carlyle's  own  journal  for 
April  23,    1840:   "I  have  been  throwing  my  lectures  upon 

1  Thomas  Carlyle,  On  J /•.■rocs,  Ifero-lVors'p,  and  the  Heroic  in 
History  (Centenary  ed.),  Introduction.     Lond.,  1S97. 

■^  On  J/cr,:cs  and  Hrro-lVc-'-'hif'  <uui  the  Ihroic  in  History.  Ws 
Thomas  Carlyle.  With  an  Introduction  by  lulmund  Gosse.  Nine- 
teenth Century  Classics.     Introduction,  p.  x.     I.ond.,  1896. 


3 

■•1 


INTRODUCTION 


XXX  vu 


paper  —  lectures  on  Heroes.  I  know  not  what  will  become 
of  them."  '  Precisely  what  the  process  of  throwing  lectures 
on  paper  was,  this  passage  would  not  by  itself  make  clear ; 
but.  taken  with  another  bit  of  C'arlyle's  own  inimitable 
description,  now  printed  for  the  first  time,  the  process 
Hashes  to  our  eyes.  '  I  splash  down  (literally  as  fast  as  my 
pen  will  go)  sor.  kind  of  pMr-i-^^raph  on  some  point  or  other 
of  my  '  Course'  ihai  has  hec)  iie  salient  and  visible  to  me; 
paragraph  after  i  ain^raph,  t  d  at  least  four  pages  daily  are 
full:  in  this  way  1  put  dowii  legibly,  if  not  something  that  I 
shall  say,  yet  something  that  I  might  &  should  say.  I  can 
clip  the  paragraphs  out  and  string  them  together  any  way  I 
like.  I  am  independent  or  nearly  so  of  Reporters.  I  shall 
be  better  able  to  spciii:  of  the  things  written  of  even  in  this 
way.  It  seems  the  best  I  can  do."  -  Such  a  method  of  com- 
position is  the  reverse  of  orderly ;  but  it  is  thoroughly  natu- 
ral. The  salient  points  dashed  down,  as  each  is  fresh  in  the 
mind,  and  arranged  in  coherence  afterwards,  ensure  fresh- 
ness and  interest.  Carlyle  wrote  a  neat,  minute,  vertical 
hand,  a  gr»*at  many  words  to  the  page ;  and  '  at  least  four 
pages  daily '  would  soon  grow  to  a  heap  of  close-wrought 
manuscript.  It  is  fair  to  infer  that  the  lectures  were  written 
out  in  great  part  before  they  were  delivered  ;  written  out 
and  left  at  home,  just  as  many  a  preacher  prepares  his 
sermon. 

The  lectures  were  given  in  the  month  of  May,  on  Tues- 
days and  Fridays,  at  Portman  Square,  at  three  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon.  The  audience  was,  as  usual,  aristocratic  in  rank 
and  intellect,  between  two  and  three  hundred  in  number 
and,  —  significant  fact,  —  grew  larger  after  the  first  lecture. 
Carlyle  expected  to  clear  i^2oo  by  the  venture  and  was  not 
disappointed.     In   reporting,  we   miss  greatly  Leigh   Hunt 

'  r /../..  I,  192. 

-  Letter  to  Dr.  Carlyle,  lytli  April,  1S40. 


I'm 


I! 


xxxvm 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


'I 


i 


J! 


and  Mrs.  Carlyle.  The  Letters  and  Memorials  are  an  abso- 
lute blank  for  this  period,  why  I  do  not  know,  except  that 
Mrs.  Carlyle  hated  letter-writing.  Leigh  Hunt's  silence  is 
explicable.  On  the  morning  of  May  5,  Antoine  Courvoisier, 
the  Swiss  valet  of  Lord  William  Russell,  cut  his  master's 
throat,  and  set  all  London  agog.  The  Examiner  has  col- 
umn after  column  on  this  crime;  but  not  a  word  for  the 
lectures.  These  two  are  silent ;  but  others  take  up  the  tale. 
The  first  lecture  was  not  the  best  of  the  series.  Carlyle's 
qualifications  for  dealing  with  Norse  mythology  were  not  so 
plain  as  in  other  cases.  He  had  not  written  or  spoken  on 
the  subject  before ;  nor  is  there  any  record  of  when  or  how 
he  read  upon  it.  Carlyle  had  time  to  keep  his  mother ' 
informed  of  his  lectures.  On  the  day  following  the  delivery 
of  the  first,  he  gives  her  cheering  news.  His  lecture-room 
is  fuller  than  ever  before,  of  "  —  the  bonniest  and  brawest  of 
people."  He  was  not  well,  had  been  awake  since  half-past 
four,  could  not  unfold  more  than  a  tenth  of  his  meaning; 
and  yet  "  the  beautiful  people "  seemed  content  and  sat 
silent,  listening  to  her  boy's  words,  as  if  they  had  been 
gospel.  Trench-  writes  to  Wilberforce  in  May,  begging  him 
"to  string  a  few  of  Carlyle's  choicest  pearls  and  send  them 
to  us  unfortunate  people  who  cannot  gather  them  as  they 
drop  from  his  lips."  He  hears  that  the  first  lecture,  "not- 
withstanding the  many  delightful  things  in  it,  was  partially 
a  failure ;  as  indeed  they  always  are,  unless  he  works  him- 
self up  into  true  Berserkr  fury,  which  on  that  occasion 
(though  it  would  have  been  one  of  the  meetest)  he  certainly 
failed  to  do." 

1  Carlyle  is  among  the  literary  men  whose  filial  devotion  to  their 
mothers  is  a  strong  feature  in  their  character  ;  Pope,  Cowper,  Gray, 
Johnson. 

*  Richard  Chevenix  Trench.  Archbishop.  Letters  and  Memorials,  I, 
248.     Lond.,  184.S. 


INTRODUCTION 


XXXIX 


With  the  second  lecture  it  was  far  different.  He  was 
loolcing  forward  to  the  opportunity  of  speaking  on  the  sub- 
ject, for  he  felt  he  had  a  message  on  Mahomet,  "  not  a 
very  intimate  friend  to  any  of  us."  The  subject  was  new 
to  the  lecturer  himself.  He  had  made  its  acquaintance  only 
the  year  before.  He  notes  in  his  journal,  October,  1839, 
reading  "Arabian  Tales  by  Lane,"  and  this  was  the  first 
edition.  His  comment  gives  the  kernel  of  the  lecture. 
"  No  people  so  religious,  except  the  English  and  Scotch 
Puritans  for  a  season.  Good  man  Mahomet,  on  the  whole  ; 
sincere  ;  a  fighter,  not  indeed  with  perfect  triumph,  yet  with 
honest  battle.  No  mere  sitter  in  the  chimney-nook  with 
theories  of  battle,  such  as  your  ordinary  '  perfect '  characters 
are.  The  '  vein  uf  anger  '  between  his  brows,  beaming  black 
eyes,  brown  complexion,  stout  middle  figure ;  fond  of  cheer- 
ful social  talk  —  wish  I  knew  Arabic."*  In  its  printed 
form,  the  lecture  shows  that  Carlyle  had  also  used  Sale,  and 
especially  Gibbon,  which  he  had  read  greedily,  in  Irving's 
copy,  twelve  volumes,  at  the  rate  of  a  volume  a  day.  when 
he  and  his  friend  were  two  unknown  village  schoolmasters, 
at  Kirkcaldy,  twenty-four  years  before. 

The  fam''  '  this  lecture  penetrated  even  to  Botley  Hill, 
where  Trt  ,  ird  that  it  was  good.     Carlyle  himself  was 

pleased  for  .-  with  what  he  said,  although  he  paid  for 
his  earnestness  with  a  sleepless  night.  He  had  learned  that 
success  in  public  speaking  depends  on  luck,  a  thousand 
things  producing  the  fit  emotional  state  ;  and  on  this  occa- 
sion he  was  thoroughly  in  tune.  The  audience  was  larger 
than  ever;  "bishops  and  all  kinds  of  people"  were  his 
hearers  ;  thev  heard  something  new,  and  "  seemed  greatly 
astonished  ^  greatly  pleased.  They  laughed,  applauded, 
ivc.  In  short  it  was  all  right,  and  I  suppose  it  was  by  much 
the  best  lecture  I  shall  have  the  luck  to  give  this  time." 

1  C.L.L.  I,  187. 


^;i: 


„■{■ 


I 

(X. 


M 


V      1^ 


:i  (i»l 


xl 


LECTURES  ON  llEKOES 


\    i 


4^ 


I  I 


m 


"I  vomited  it  forth  on  them  like  wild  Annandale  grapeshot." 
"  I  gave  them  to  know  that  the  poor  Arab  had  points  about 
him  which  it  were  good  for  them  all  to  imitate  ;  that  probably 
they  were  more  of  quacks  than  he." '  Macready  took  this 
afternoon  as  a  holiday,  between  rehearsal  and  performance, 
and  "was  charmed  and  carried  away"  by  the  lecturer. 
The  professional  speaker  notes  that  the  amateur  "  descanted  " 
on  his  theme  "  with  a  fervour  and  eloquence  which  only  a 
conviction  of  truth  could  give."-  Here  he  met  Browning; 
but  his  opinion  is  not  recorded.  One  dissenting  voice  is 
heard,  the  voice  of  Frederick  Denison  Maurice.*  He 
admired  Carlyle,  attended  his  lectures,  but  felt  what  was 
the  fact,  that  CarlyU-  did  not  like  him.  He  and  his  sister 
Prisciila  attended  this  one  together.  Both  the  Bishop  of 
Salisbury  and  VVilberforce  spoke  to  him  of  the  lecture  with 
interest,  although  the  lecturer  had  said  things  to  shock  "  the 
shovel-hatted."  Mrs.  Denison  asked  his  opinion,  which  he 
had  not  time  to  give ;  he  had  an  errand  to  Westminster.  The 
audience  seemed  willing  to  pick  the  wheat  from  the  chaff, 
the  truth  from  among  his  inconsistencies.  Maurice  is  dis- 
tinctly critical  in  his  attitude.  "The  miserable  vagueness 
into  which  he  sometimes  fell,  his  silly  rant  about  the  great 
bosom  of  Nature,  which  was  repeated  in  this  lecture  several 
times,  which,  as  you  observed,  he  would  laugh  to  scorn  in 
any  other  man,  together  with  the  most  monstrous  confusions 
both  moral  and  intellectual,  even  while  he  wished  to  assert 
the  distinction  between  right  and  wrong,  convinced  me 
whither  his  tolerance  would  lead  in  any  mind  in  which  it  was 
not  corrected,  as  it  is  in  his,  by  a  real  abhorrence  of  what  is 
base  and  false,  and  by  a  recklessness  of  logical  consistency, 
if  so  be   he  can  bring   out   his  different   half-conceptions 

'  C.I..L.  I,    93.     See  also  E.-Coir.  I,  319. 
2  Afacready^s  Diaries,  sub  dat.  May  8,  1840. 
•''  Life  of  E.  D.  Maurice,  I,  282.     Lond.,  1884. 


INTRODUCTION 


xX\ 


in  some  strong  expressive  language."  His  objections  are 
natural  enough  in  a  clergyman  ;  for  the  lecturer  regarded 
the  supernatural  heart  of  the  Christian  religion  as  myth. 
Maurice  adds  his  testimony  to  Carlyle's  eloquence.  "  The 
lecture  was  by  far  the  most  animated  and  vehement  I  ever 
heard  from  him.  It  was  a  passionate  defence  of  Mahomet 
from  all  the  charges  that  have  been  brought  agiinst  him 
and  a  general  panegyric  upon  him  and  his  doctrine.  He 
did  not  bring  out  any  new  maxim,  but  it  was  a  much  clearer 
and  more  emphatic  commentary  than  the  former  lecture 
upon  his  two  or  three  standing  maxims  ;  that  no  great  man 
can  be  insincere ;  that  a  doctrine  which  spreads  must  have 
truth  in  it ;  and  that  this  particular  one  was  a  vesture  fitted 
to  the  time  and  circumstances  of  the  common  truths  which 
belong  to  all  religions."  Dr.  Garnett  mentions  a  very  dif- 
ferent kind  of  dissenter,  who  created  a  mild  "  scene  "  at  this 
lecture.*  I  find  no  record  of  it  elsewhere,  and  it  shows  Car- 
lyle's hold  over  his  audience.  John  Stuart  Mill,  the  logician, 
the  calm  Mill  of  the  Autobiography,  was  guilty  of  interrupting 
his  friend  the  speaker.  Carlyle  could  not  abide  utilitarianis  .i 
and,  led  away  by  his  own  vehemence,  "  without  prior  pur- 
pose," denounced  Bentham's  ethics  compared  with  Mahomet's 
as  "  the  beggarlier  and  falser  view  of  Man  and  his  Destinies 
in  this  Universe."^  As  he  uttered  "beggarlier,"  Mill  rose 
to  his  feet  with  an  emphatic  "  No  ! "  The  lecture  evidently 
struck  contemporaries  in  quite  different  ways;  but  all  agree 
as  to  the  force  of  the  impression. 

On  the  Hero  as  Poet,  Dante  and  Shakspere,  Carlyle  had 
special  right  to  speak.      Everything  he  says  of  Shakspere 

1  Life  of  Carlyle,  p.  171.  Great  Writers  Series.  Lond.,  1895.  It  is 
a  pleasure  to  call  attention  again  to  the  solidity  and  humorous  wisdom 
of  this,  the  best  "  short  view  "  of  Carlyle,  and  surely  one  of  the  best 
brief  biographies  ever  written. 

^  See  Heroes,  87  19. 


xlii 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


I 


iii 


I!    :      : 


shows  insight  and  warm  appreciation ; '  he  made  a  pilgrimage 
to  Stratford-on-Avon  in  1824,  and  some  lines,  like  the  famous 
"cloud-capped"  passage  in  77ie  Tempest,  he  is  never  wearied 
of  quoting.  Knowledge  of  Shakspere  may  be  assumed  in 
the  case  of  all  the  great  ones.  He  had  already  lectured  on 
him  in  the  course  of  '38,''  when  the  treatment  and  general 
plan  were  much  the  same  as  in  Heroes.^  When  Carlyle 
began  Italian,  I  cannot  find ;  but  he  and  his  wife  were  both 
studying  that  language  in  1834,  after  they  were  settled  in 
their  London  home,  and  used  to  walk  together  at  evening 
along  the  river  and  past  Chelsea  Hospital.  He  was  then 
reading  Dante,  as  he  was  in  the  winter  of  1837.  In  the 
course  of  '38,  he  devoted  an  entire  lecture,*  the  fifth,  to 
Dante  ,  and  here  again,  he  was  going  over  the  same  ground. 
A  second  time  he  succeeded  in  giving  a  "  sharp  lecture  "  on 
the  passionate  Florentine. 

This  lecture  had  the  strange  fortune  to  be  reported  in 
the  Times  next  morning,  by  some  one  who  spelled  the  lec- 
turer's name  'Carlisle.'  His  account  may  be  accurate,  but 
it  is  not  emotional.  "  There  were  present  a  great  number  of 
persons,  principally  ladies.  The  lecture  was  on  the  char- 
acters of  Dante  and  Shakspeare,  and  the  effect  which  their 
productions  had  produced  on  society,  and  the  estimate  which 
posterity  had  made  of  their  abilities.  The  lecturer  began 
with  showing  the  connexion  between  the  prophet  and  the 
poet,  and  by  comparing  the  characteristics  of  the  two.  The 
prophet  taught  what  was  good  ;  the  poet  what  was  beautiful. 
He  then  proceeded  to  expatiate  on  the  genius  of  Dante,  and 
gave  a  short  account  of  his  history.  Dante's  excellence  he 
described  to  consist  in  intensity.     In  every  relation  of  his 

1  See  C.E.L.  I,  244,  and  Historical  Sketches,  22,  76,  103. 

«  See  L.L.  147-152. 

^  See  A'otes  for  confirmation. 

<  See  L.L.  So-ioo. 


li 


INTRODUCTION 


xliii 


life  he  was  intense;  in  liis  love  for  iieatrice  he  was  intense  ; 
in  his  political  career   at   Florence    he  was  intense;   and 
in  his  poetry  his  intensity  was  concentrated.     The  Divina 
Commedia  was  a  mirror  of  the  catholicitv  of  theajje  in  which 
he  lived  and  was  valuable  as  a  record  of  the  modes  of  think- 
ing on  the  spiritual  subjects  of  tiie  ten  centuries  by  which 
he  was  preceded.     Mr.  Carlisle  then  proceeded  to  give  his 
notions  on  the  character  of  Shakspeare,  whom  he  considered 
the  man  of  the  greatest  intellect  of  any  age ;  he  exemplified 
the  grandeur  of   his  ideas    by  the  words  inscribed  on  his 
tomb,    taken    from    his   own    writings,    'The   cloud-capped 
towers  &c.,'   and  described    him    as    the    historian   of   the 
practical  world,  as  Dante  was  of  the  spiritual.     The  lecturer 
concluded    by    saying   that    no    Englishman    would    resign 
Shakspeare  for  any  price  whatever  ;  he  would  sooner  give 
up  possession  of  the  Indian  empire  than  part  with  the  great 
poet  of  his  country."     Carlyle  is  hardly  recognizable  in  this 
guise ;  but,  wooden  as  it  is,  it  shows  that  Carlyle  followed  a 
plan  which  is  the  same  in  the  spoken   address  as   in  the 
book  form.     The  reporter  remains  outside    the    sphere  of 
Carlyle's  influence,  and  finds  little  to  praise.      He  notes  the 
applause  at  the  close,  but  seems  to  think  it  hardly  justified. 
'•  The  lecture,  though  it  contained  little  that  was  particularly 
novel  in  idea,    was    enforced  with    a   rugged   simplicity  of 
thought  and  diction  that  occasionally  became  elocjuent,  and 
secured  the  attention    and  perhaps  the  admiration   of   his 
audience."'     Maurice  was  again  in  attendance  and  again 
in  revolt.     He  felt  that  the  time  was  critical,  and  that  the 
guiding  lights  were  leading  astray  ;  and  he  too  reported  the 
lecture  next  day,  to  a  limited  public,  his  wife,  in  these  terms: 
"  I  know  not  how  to  tell  you  what  apprehension  I  sometimes 
feel  at  the  thought  of  what  is  coming  to  this  generation.     I 
feel  it  at  Carlyle's  lectures,  especially  in  such  wild  pantheistic 
1  For  this  reporter's  correction  of  Carlyle,  see  Notes. 


pi?  W- 


(■■k  1 


*.'4 


III 


\A 


xliv 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


rant  as  that  into  which  he  fell  at  the  close  of  yesterday's. 
And  then  I  wonder  how  I  can  ever  indulge  in  little  bickerings 
and  childish  pettiness  when  such  perils  are  threatening  some 
of  the  noblest  anc'  lest  spirits  in  the  land."  '  Ky  joining  the 
two  statements,  it  is  plain  that  the  audience  was  attenti\  * 
and  appreciative,  and  that  the  lecturer  was  equal  to  himseh, 
even  if  he  did  not  rise  to  the  height  of  his  great  argument 
on  Mahomet. 

Of  the  fourth  lecture,  I  have  not  been  able  to  find  any- 
thing either  in  the  way  of  record  or  impression,  beyond  Car- 
lyle's  statement  that  his  wife  thought  that  it  and  the  fifth 
were  among  the  very  best  he  ever  gave.  He  is  always  nerv- 
ous and  anxious  until  they  are  delivered  at  the  appointed 
time ;  but  suffers  "  no  excessive  shattering  "  of  himself  to 
pieces  in  consequence.  His  heart  is  in  his  subject,  and  his 
interest  gives  vigor  to  his  words.  "  I  am  telling  the  people 
matters  that  belong  much  more  to  myself  this  year."  Luther 
and  Knox  "  belonged  "  to  him.  At  one  time  he  contem- 
plated writing  a  life  of  Luther,  and  he  had  lectured  upon 
him  in  every  one  of  the  preceding  courses.  On  Knox,  he 
could  also  speak  with  authority  ;  and  he  had  given  the  sub- 
stance of  what  he  said  now,  in  '38  and  in  '39. 

In  the  audience  that  heard  the  last  two  lectures  sat  a 
Quaker  girl  of  twenty-one,  from  Cornwall,  deeply  religious, 
cultivated,  alert,  belonging  to  a  wealthy  family  well  known 
in  the  Society  of  Friends,  by  name  Caroline  Fox.  The 
provincial  world  into  which  her  ch'xxmwi^  Journal s  bring  the 
lucky  reader  is  as  delightful,  as  the  London  world,  which 
Carlyle  and  Thackeray  and  Harriet  Martineau  saw  and 
lashed,  is  kideous.  It  is  a  sane,  kindly,  unaffected  world, 
with  broad,  unselfish,  human  interests.  Caroline  Fox  was 
the  friend  of  Carlyle's  friend,  John  Sterling ;  she  had  long 
Wtifrtm    and    admired    Carlyle's    books,    and    came    up    to 

I  /,//<■  .//•".  n.  Maurice,  F,  283.     Lond.,  1884. 


INTKODUCTIOX 


xlv 


London  at  the  time  of  the  May  meetings,  fresh  from  reading 
Chartism,  which  had  not  "lessened  the  excitement"  with 
which  she  anticipated  seeing  and  hearing  the  author.  She 
had  eager  eyes  and  a  ready  pen,  and  she  makes  such  good 
use  of  them,  recording  much  in  her  diary,  but  never  a  mean 
or  ungenerous  thought,  that  the  professed  Carlylean  sighs 
to  think  she  was  not  able  to  attend  this  whole  course. 

At  "The  Hero  as  Man  of  Letters,"  on  May  19,  she  sat 
beside  Harriet  Mill,  who  introduced  her  next  neighbor, 
the  lecturer':  wife.  In  the  audience  she  "discovered" 
Whewell,  the  great  Cambridge  don,  Samuel  VVilberforce 
("  Soapy  Sam  "),  and  his  beautiful  wife.  The  audience  was 
"  very  thoughtful  and  earnest  in  appearance."  Her  first 
impressions  of  the  lecturer  himself  must  not  be  given  in  any 
words  but  her  own.  "  Carlyle  soon  appeared,  and  looked"" 
as  if  he  felt  a  well-dressed  London  audience  scarcely  the 
arena  for  him  to  figure  in  as  a  popular  lecturer.  He  is  a 
tall,  robust-looking  man  ;  rugged  simplicity  and  indomitable 

strength  are  in  his  face,  and  such  a  glow  of  genius  in  it 

not  always  smouldering  there,  but  flashing  from  his  beautiful 
grey  eyes,  from  the  remoteness  of  their  deep  setting  under 
that  massive  brow.  His  manner  is  very  quiet,  but  he  speaks 
like  one  tremendously  convinced  of  what  he  utters,  and  who 
hud  much  —  very  much  —  in  him  that  was  quite  unutterable, 
quite  unfit  to  be  uttered  to  the  uninitiated  ear  ;  and  when 
tile  Englishman  b  sense  of  beauty  or  truth  exhibited  itself  in 
vociferous  cheers,  he  would  impatiently,  almost  contemptu- 
ously, wave  his  hand,  as  if  that  were  not  the  kind  of  homage 
which  Truth  demanded.  He  began  in  a  rather  low  and 
nervous  voice,  with  a  broad  Scotch  accent,  but  it  soon  grew 
firm,  and  shrank  not  abashed  from  its  great  task." '  This, 
une  feels,  is  the  true  view  of  Carlyle  and  his  audience.  It 
.vas  no  ordinary  young  lady  noting  the  dates,  "  and  these  all 
1  Caroline  Fox,  Her  Journals  and  Letters,  I,  182  f. 


xlvi 


I.HCTUKES  0\'  irEROF.S 


|i 


h 


;i« 


wrong,  "  who  could  so  quickly  penetrate  the  spirit  of  the 
gathering,  catch  the  speaker's  accent  of  conviction,  divine 
his  many  reticences,  and  preserve  and  interpret  that  char- 
acteristic little  gesture.  Perhaps  no  one  in  the  room  was 
more  delicately  .ittuned  to  a  lecture  on  the  cult  of  the  hero, 
when  he  comes  as  man  of  letters. 

Her  outline  of  the  lecture  is  too  long  to  quote  in  full,  but 
it  shows  the  same  course  of  thought,  in  many  cases  the  same 
words  are  used  as  in  the  book.  More  important  are  the 
differences.  The  phrases  which  she  jotted  down  that  very 
day,  when  they  were  still  ringing  in  her  ears,  and  which  do 
not  appear  in  Heroes,  the  book,  are  striking.  For  example : 
"  Some  philosophers  of  a  sceptical  age  seemed  to  hold  that 
the  object  of  the  soul's  creation  was  to  prevent  the  decay 
and  putrefaction  of  the  body,  in  fact,  a  rather  superior  sort 
of  salt."  Or  again :  "  iJefore  others  had  discovered  any- 
thing sublime,  lioswell  had  done  it  and  embraced  his  knees 
when  his  bosom  was  denied  him."  The  spoken  account  of 
Roa  !^\u  differed  from  the  written,  apparently,  both  by 
omisoion  and  addition.  The  entry  in  the  diary  for  this  day 
makes  no  mention  of  the  de  Genlis  anecdote,  for  example, 
and  does  record  Carlyle's  private  view  of  the  most  infamous 
of  autobiographies.  "  The  Confessions  are  the  only  writings 
of  his  which  I  have  read  with  any  interest ;  there  you  see 
the  man  as  he  really  was,  though  1  can't  say  that  it  is  a  duty 
to  lay  bare  the  Bluebeard  chambers  of  the  heart."  From 
the  future  writer  of  the  Reminiscences,  the  editor  of  the  Letters 
ami  Memorials,  this  is  unconscious  irony.  The  accuracy  of 
the  reporter  being  assumed,  this  part  of  the  lecture  differed 
widely  from  the  final  form.  The  characterizations  of  Johnson 
and  Burns,  on  the  other  hand,  must  have  been  substantially  the 
same,  as  in  the  printed  Heroes.  This  may  be  easily  accounted 
for.  Carlyle's  essays  on  Johnson  and  Burns  are  documents 
of  great  and  permanent  value  ;  and  in  the  process  of  their 


IXTKODUCTION 


xlvii 


making,  his  ideas  regarding  both  heroes  had  become  fixed 
and  crystallized  ;  and  he  would  inevitably  give  them  forth 
again  and  again  in  the  original  order  and  proportion.  With 
Rousseau  he  was  not  so  much  at  home,  and  might  very  well 
draft  and  say  things  about  him  which  he  would  not  think 
good  enough  to  print.  In  Mrs.  Carlyle's  opinion,  this  was 
one  of  the  very  best  of  his  lectures,  and  the  lecturer  was 
inclined  to  agree  with  her. 

If  the  final  lecture  did  not  succeed,  it  could  not  be  for 
want  of  adequate  preparation.  From  1822  he  had  been 
reading  on  the  history  of  Puritanism,  beginning  with  Claren- 
don, and  hail  meditated  a  history  of  the  movement.  The 
fragments  of  that  work,  edited  with  pious  care  by  Mr. 
.Alexander  Carlyle,  show  us  what  we  have  lost.  As  he  read 
and  thought  and  wrote,  the  conviction  grew  on  him  that  the 
traditional  view  of  the  great  central  figure  in  the  rise  of 
Puritanism,  upheld  by  every  historian  for  nearly  two  centu- 
ries, was  grotesquely  absurd,  a  deliberate  putting  of  black 
for  white.  The  two  hundred  and  odd  holders  of  guinea 
tickets  that  Friday  afternoon,  May  22,  1S40,  had  the  privi- 
lege of  being  the  first  to  learn  a  great  historical  truth.  For 
Napoleon,  Carlyle  also  had  special  knowledge.  lie  was  a 
man  of  twenty,  out  of  college,  in  the  Waterloo  year,  and  had 
itarned  the  Corsican's  history  in  the  process  of  making, 
lie  had  already  lectured  twice  on  the  French  Revolution, 
and,  although  his  great  prose  poem  on  the  time  ends  with 
the  "whiff  of  grape-shot"  at  the  beginning  of  Napoleon's 
career,  he  had  read  largely  on  the  subject.  The  lecture  is 
out  of  proportion  ;  the  rehabilitation  of  Cromwell  leaves 
little  room  for  the  wonderful  man,  whose  daimonic  power 
has  enlarged  the  world's  conception  of  the  possibilities  of 
the  human  spirit. 

Caroline  Fox's  report  shows  the  same  course  of  thought 
as  in  the  book  ;  and,  in  spite  of  a  couple  of  slips,  such  as 


!lw. 


\  ''Si 


xlviii 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


'lf 


noting  '  nymph,'  for  '  imp,'  probably,  in  Cromwell's  reputed 
vision  of  his  coming  greatness,  and  giving  the  anecdote  of 
Cromwell's  mother  to  Napoleon's  mother,  it  impresses  the 
reader  with  its  essential  accuracy.  One  note  at  least  could 
be  ill  spared,  her  impression  of  the  climax.  "  After  many 
other  effective  touches  in  this  sketch,  which  compelled  you 
to  side  with  Carlyle  as  to  Cromwell's  self-devotion  and  mag- 
nanimity, he  gave  the  finishing  stroke  with  an  air  of  most 
innocent  wonderment.  .  .  .  'And  yet  I  believe  I  am  the 
first  to  say  that  Cromwell  was  an  honest  man ' ' "  Car- 
lyle's  very  words  are  reproduced  :  "  Cromwell  comes  before 
us  with  a  dark  element  of  chaos  round  him,"  is  unmistak- 
able, as  is  the  Scotticism  in  "  but  I  (huH  that  this  vision 
was  only  the  constant  sense  of  his  power  to  which  a  visible 
form  was  given."  The  lecturer  was  not  above  allusions  to 
contemporary  politics,  which  would  lose  their  point  in  print, 
and  would  be  made  general.  The  passage  on  Cromwell's 
great  difficulty  runs,  "  Prime  Ministers  have  governed  coun- 
tries, Pitt,  Pombal,  Choiseul ;  and  their  word  was  a  law 
while  it  held  ;  but  this  Prime  Minister  was  one  that  could  not 
get  resigned,''  but  it  has  another  complexion  in  the  Journals, 
"He  was  in  a  position  similar  to  the  present  Ministry  —  he 
could  not  resign."  Again,  what  Caroline  Fox  heard  regard- 
ing the  education  of  Napoleon  is  different  in  form,  though 
not  in  idea,  from  the  passage  in  Heroes.  "  Napoleon  was 
brought  up,  believing  not  the  (lospel  according  to  St.  John, 
but  the  Gospel  according  to  St.  Diderot,"  is  hardly  recog- 
nizable in,  "  He  had  to  begin,  not  out  of  the  Puritan  Bible, 
but  out  of  poor  sceptical  Kncydopidies" 

From  the  lecturer  himself  we  get  the  performer's  point  of 
view,  very  different  from  the  spectator's.  "  On  the  last  day 
—  Friday  last  —  I  went  to  speak  of  Cromwell  with  a  head 
full  of  air ;  you  know  that  wretched  physical  feeling;  I  had 
been  concerned  with  drugs,  had  awakened  at  five,  etc.     It  is 


/XrKO/)L'CT/OX 


absolute  martyrdom.     My  tofiKuc  would  l.irdly  wag  at  all 
when  I  Kot  done.     \'et  the  Kood  people  v  .te  breathless,  or 
broke  out  into  all  kinds  of  te.stimonies  of  jjoodwill ;  seemed 
to  like  very  much  indeed  the  hu^e  ra;,'ged  image  I  gave  them 
of  a  believing  Calvinistic  soldier  and  reformer.     •  Sun-clear, 
initleus  of  intellect  and  force  and  faith,  in  its  wild  circum- 
ambient  element   of   darkness,  hypochondriac  misery  and 
quasi-madness,  in  direct  communication  once  more  with  the 
innermost  deep  of  things.'     In  a  word,  we  got  right  hand- 
somely  through." '     The  last  sentence  is  significant ;  he  can 
conceal  the  fact  neither  from  his  brother  nor  himself.     "  The 
lecturing  business  went  ofT  with  sufficient  f,/at.     The  course 
was  generally  judged,  and  I   rather  join  therein  myself,  to 
be  the  bad  /ust  I  have  yet  given."-     He  reluctantly  con- 
fesses  his  success  in  his  diary.     "  1  got  through  the  last 
lecture  yesterday  in  very  tolerable  style,  seeniingly  much  to 
the  satisfaction  of  all  parties  ;  and  the  people  all  expressed 
very  genuine-looking  friendliness  for   me.     I  contrived  to 
tell  them  .something,'  about  poor  Cromwell,  and   I  think  to 
convince  them  that  he  was  a  great  and  true  man,  the  valiant 
soldier  in    England  of  what  John    Knox  had  preached  in 
Scotland.     In  a  word,  the  people  seemed  agreed  that  it  was 
the  best  course  of  lectures,  this.'"'     All  this  is,  of  course, 
the  thoroughly  ScottiMi  under-statement.*     The  best  course 
of  the  four  ended  in  a  blaze  of  fireworks,  people  weeping  at 
tlie  earnest  tone  in  which  they  were  addressed.     As  the  audi- 
ence grew,  year  by  year,  in  appreciation  of  the  speaker,  the 
speaker  grew  in  appreciation  of  his  audience.     The  "dan- 
diacal," "  Dryasdustical,"  ••  superfine  "  people  were  at  last  the 

'  Letter  to  Dr.  Jolin  Carlyle.  May  26.  1840,  C.L.L.  I,  loc 

"^  n<ij.  ^^' 

'  C.L.L.  I,  194. 

♦  Compare   T/u  Cunning  Sptah  of  Drumtochty,  and  A  mndow  in 
fnrums,  passim. 


1 

i 

1 
i 

1 

F 
4 

i 

1 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


"humane,"  the  "good,"  the  "beautiful  "  people.  His  atti- 
tude towards  his  audience  is  as  different  as  possible  from 
Ruskin's,  for  instance  ;  his  appeals  to  "  your  candour,"  his 
sharing  "  our  "  Shakspere  contrast  strangely  with  the  fierce 
invectives  of  "  The  Crown  of  Wild  Olive  "  ;  and  the  courtly 
compliment,  with  which  he  took  his  leave,  was  true  and  came 
from  his  heart.  Success,  popular  success,  after  long  years 
of  waiting  had  come  at  last.  Only,  he  had  waited  for  it  too 
long,  and  now  he  found  it  short  in  measure.  What  youth 
desires,  age  has  in  satiety. 

It  is  hard  to  resist  the  conclusion  that  there  were  few 
better  investments  for  a  guinea  that  May  in  London  than  a 
ticket  for  Mr.  Carlyle's  course,  (?«  Heroes.  It  is  not  every 
season  that  one  can,  by  any  payment  of  money,  hear  a  lec- 
turer who  makes  people,  least  of  all  a  mob  of  London 
society,  knit  their  brows  in  thought,  makes;  inem  laugh, 
makes  them  cry,  makes  them  applaud,  makes  them  forget 
their  trained  self-repression  in  cries  of  '  devilish  fine  ! ' 
'  splendid  ! '  '  most  true  !  '  who  rouses  them  to  the  point  of 
wanting  to  dine  him,  a  lecturer  who  does  this  for  four  years 
in  succession.  The  Carlylean  professed  would  almost  be 
content  to  stand  on  the  threshold  of  the  wonderful  new  cen- 
tury, a  doddering  octogenarian,  if  so,  in  his  hot  youth.  Fate 
had  deemed  him  worthy  to  be  numbered  in  the  ranks  of 
those  who  beheld  those  "  emanations  from  the  moon,"  and 
sustained  gladly  the  salvos  of  "  wild  Annandale  grapeshot." 


Ill 

Heroes,  the  series  of  lectures,  is  one  thing,  and  Heroes. 
the  printed  book,  is  quite  another.  Even  without  the  evi- 
dence of  Caroline  Fox's  Journals  and  of  the  letter  to  Dr. 
Carlyle,  both  containing  good  things  which  do  not  appear 
in  the  authorized  version,  the  briefest  reflection  shows  that 


IN  TROD  UC  TION 


li 


it  would  be  absurd  to  expect  the  two  versions  to  be  exactly 
the  same.  Carlyle  did  not  recite  lectures  previously  com- 
mitted to  memory,  but  he  spoke  extempore,  after  careful 
preparation.!  His  memory  was  amazing,  but  even  his  mem- 
ory would  not  be  equal  to  the  task  of  recalling  the  very 
words  he  used  in  the  heat  of  impassioned  harangue.  Nor 
would  he  think  of  trying  to  do  so.  But  he  did  think  that 
somebody  else  might  do  this  for  him. 

Carlyle,  curiously  enough,  entertained  singular  hopes 
regarding  reporters,  remembering,  no  doubt,  the  devotion 
of  Mr.  Anstey  in  1838.  Before  the  lectures  begin,  he  con- 
gratulates himself  on  the  fact  of  having  written  them  out ; 
he  will  thereby  be  '  independent  or  nearly  so  of  reporters  '  ,' 
but  the  phrase  shows  that  he  considered  a  report  of  them  a 
possibility.  While  they  are  in  progress  he  writes  ■^ :  "  There 
is  no  newspaper  that  I  know  of  hitherto  which  gives  any 
Report  of  my  Lectures  this  year.' ...  A  reporter  of  Fraser 
the  Bookseller's  does  attend,  and  make  a  kind  of  Note  or 
Draft  of  the  business;  a  diligent,  intelligent  man  ;  but  what 
can  any  reporter  do  ?  I  have  seen  his  '  First  Lecture,'  and 
would  not  have  it  printed  with  my  name  to  it  for  any  hire 
whatsoever.  My  only  chance  .  .  .  will  be  to  work  the  sub- 
ject up  by  myself,  and  print  it  by  and  by  as  a  kind  of  book." 

1  Mr.  Moncure  Conway  states  that  Carlyle  brought  a  manuscript  and 
found  It  much  in  the  way;  and  that  on  the  "  next  evening"  he  brought 
some  notes,  but  these  tripped  him  till  he  left  them.  Thomas  Carlyle, 
I).  24.  N.Y.,  1881.  The  statement  is  vague,  no  authority  is  cited-  and 
the  mention  of  evening  is  a  slip,  for  Cariyle  lectured  in  the  afternoon. 
In  any  case,  the  last  four  lectures  were  delivered  extempore,  as  those 
of  the  first  three  courses  certainly  were.  Finding  the  MS.  in  the  way 
would  account  for  the  comparative  failure  of  the  first  lecture,  which 
1  rench  heard  of. 

-  letter  to  T!,omas  Ballantyne,  May  11,  1840,  copied  by  Mr.  Alex- 
ander Cariyle  for  the  editor. 

='  Being  full  of  the  Courvoisier  murder. 


ll.''"";  ! 


hv 


lii 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


Carlyle  had  evidently  thought  it  possible  for  a  merely  human 
reporter,  let  him  be  diligent  and  intelligent,  to  catch  the 
'  wild  Annandale  grapeshot '  as  it  flew,  and  present  it  in  a 
shape  which  he  himself  would  recognize  and  acknowledge. 
Of  course,  the  vaulting  ambition  of  Fraser's  hack  was  fore- 
doomed to  failure.  Carlyle  had  to  be  his  own  reporter,  and 
he  says  as  much  on  the  title-page  of  the  first  edition.'  There 
the  sub-title  runs,  "  Six  Lectures.  Reported  with  Emenda- 
tions and  Additions.  By  Thomas  Carlyle."-  In  other 
words,  the  author  himself  wishes  it  to  be  understood  that 
the  relation  between  the  finished  book  and  the  eloquence 
of  Portman  Square  is  really  faint  and  far  away. 
How  he  managed  to 

"  recapture 
The  first  fine  careless  rapture  " 

of  those  winged  words  that  set  the  fine,  prim  southron  bodies 
laughing  and  crying  and  clapping  their  hands,  is  a  ques 
tion  easier  to  ask  than  to  answer.  One  thing  is  certain ; 
he  could  not  sing  his  song  twice  over.  The  thing  written 
to  be  read  differs  widely  from  the  thing  written  to  be 
spoken.  The  eye  is  a  more  exacting  critic  than  the  ear; 
and  the  spoken  word  that  stirred  the  blood  often  looks  piti- 
able enough  in  cold  print.  The  thing  to  be  read  must  have 
finish,  if  it  is  to  be  read  more  than  once  ;  but  finish  tends 
to  make  the  spoken  thing  ring  hollow.  Besides,  as  every 
one  knows  who  has  tried  it,  the  process  of  recasting  a  lec- 
ture into  an  essay  is  slow  and  disagreeable.  Carlyle  felt 
that  the  •  subject '  must  be  '  worked  up,'  and,  as  he  labored 
Heroes  through  the  heat  of  a  London  summer,  he  found  it 

1  Also  in  the  second,  1842,  and  the  third,  1846. 

2  Sir  Frederick  Pollock,  in  recommending  Heroes  as  a  new  book 
(April  16,  1S41)  to  a  friend,  draws  the  natural  inference  and  writer: 
"  They  are  printed  from  shorthand  notes."  See  his  Reminiscences,  i, 
172.     Lond.,  1887. 


*, 


INTRODUCTION 


liii 


'toilsome  to  produce.'     He  was,  however,  not  without  aids. 
His  main  reliance  must  have  been  the  rough  draft,  the  para- 
graphs '  splashed  down,'  and  then  '  clipped  out '  and  '  strung 
together '  in  logical  order ;  for  it  is  plain  that  the  thought 
followed  the  same  course  in  the  lectures  that  it  does  in  the 
book.     In   1838,  he  had  gone  over  much  the  same  ground, 
and  he  still  had,  in  all  probability,  Anstey's  copy  of   the 
lectures  to  borrow  from.     We  know  that  in  Sartor  he  used 
old  printed  and  written  material  freely ;  and  it  is  natural  to 
suppose  that  he  might  do  so  again.     The  notes  to  this  edi- 
tion show  a  good  many  parallels  drawn  from  the  Lectures 
on  Literature;  and  in  every  case  the  advantage  in  finish  lies 
with  the  phrase  of  LLeroes.     The  necessity  of  '  emendations ' 
is  plain  enough.     Even  if  he  had  been  reported  by  short- 
1       hand  or  phonograph,  Carlyle  would  not  print  the  result  as  it 
stood.     Comparison,  wherever  possible,  ind=  -ates  what  might 
i)e  reasonably  expected  ;   that  the  richer  more  elaborated 
phrase  is  not  what  he  spoke  in  his  haste,  at  the  rostrum, 
but  what  he  meditated,  pen  in  hand,  in  his  quiet  study.     If 
we  assume,  for  instance,  that  Anstey's  report  gives  the  very 
words   spoken    by  him   in    .S38,  the   book,  as  Lectures  on 
Literature,  shows  thin  and  anaemic  beside  the  full-blooded 
Heroes.     Many  things  he  would  no  doubt  remember.     The 
spurt  at  Benthamism  that  roused  Mill  was  unpremeditated, 
spoken  'without  prior  purpose';   but  Carlyle  retains  both  it 
nul  the  apology.     And  this  could  hardly  be  the  only  case. 
On  some  of  his  heroes  he  had  repeated  himself  in  lecture 
twice  or  thrice  already  ;   on  some   he  had  made  elaborate 
studies  ;  and  his  mind  was  full  of  them.     As  for  'additions,' 
one    single    fact    shows    that    they    must    have    been    very 
^Tcat.    All  Carlyle's  lectures  lasted  one  hour,  and  they  rarely 
exceeded  >  these  limits.     Anstey's  reports  give  about  twenty 

'  The  la.t  and  best  lecture  of  the  18.59  course  lasted  an  hour  and  a 
l>aif.     See  C.L.L.l,  171. 


''^' 


Uv 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


',i 


V 


!r: 


lii 


% 


i<  i 


pages  to  each  lecture;  but  each  lecture  on  Heroes  fills  more 
than  forty.  Even  if  Anstey  did  not  catch  or  record  every 
word,  the  difference  is  striking. 

But  while  insisting  on  the  differences  between  the  book  and 
the  lectures,  it  is  possible  to  make  too  much  of  them.  The 
two  modes  of  expression,  the  lecture  and  the  essay,  of  neces- 
sity, differ  widely ;  *  the  "  emendations  and  additions  "  were 
many ;  and  it  is  plain  that  there  were  omissions  ;  but  in 
both  the  general  plan  is  the  same;  that  is  plain  from  the 
reports  of  Caroline  Fox,  and  whenever  there  is  the  chance 
of  comparing  the  versions  of  different  hearers.  The  deliv- 
erances at  Portman  Square  served  as  framework,  which  he 
built  upon  and  filled  in  and  finished. 

In  the  Carlylean  chronology,  1840  is  the  year  of  Heroes. 
Eight  months  out  of  the  twelve  went  to  the  shaping  of  it. 
In  February  came  the  conception,  the  serious  meditation  of 
the  course,  when  Carlyle  seemed  to  himself  to  have  attained 
to  the  primordium  of  a  subject.     By  the  end  of  March  he 
records   his   intention  of  writing  his  lectures  down,  "  and 
then   flaming   about   over   both   hemispheres   with   them." 
That  is,  he  has  in  mind  Emerson's  invitation,  now  six  years 
old,  and  composes  his  course  with  an  eye  to  the  American 
platform.     In  April  he  was  splashing  down,  in  paragraphs, 
as  fast  as  he  could  write,  his  rough  first  draft,  then  cutting 
it  up  and  stringing  the  slips  into  orderly  succession.     May, 
from  the  fifth  to  the  twenty-second,  was  taken  up  with  the 
delivery  of  the  lectures,  and  at  the  end  of  the  month  the 
work  of  writing  them  out  began.     The  first  two  were  com- 
posed in  June.     About  the  twenty-third  of  August,  Carlyle 
writes  that  ten  more  days  will  see  him  at  the  end  of  his 
wearisome  task,  and,  by  the  end  of  September,  he  is  able 
to  announce  to  Emerson  that  the  work  is  done.     "  On  the 
whole,  I  have  written  down  my  last  course  of  lectures,  and 
1  Sc.  Kuskin,  Sesame  and  Lilies,  (second)  Preface,io^xxKV  paragraph. 


Mi* 


INTRODUCTION 


Iv 


shall  probably  print  them  ;  that  will  be  the  easiest  way  of 
lecturing  in  America."  But  even  earlier,  he  had  given  up 
the  project  of  a  lecture  tour  abroad.  His  success  had  been 
so  complete  that  he  had  thought  of  perfecting  himself  in  the 
art  of  public  speaking  and  repeating  the  course  outside  of 
London.  "  In  the  fire  of  the  moment  I  had  all  but  decided 
on  setting  out  for  America  this  autumn  and  preaching  far 
and  wide  like  a  very  lion  there.  .  .  .  Thus  did  I  mean  to 
preach,  on  "  Heroes,  and  Hero- Worship,  and  the  Heroic"; 
in  America  too.  Alas  the  fire  of  determination  died  away 
again  :  all  that  I  did  resolve  was  to  write  these  Lectures 
down,  and  in  some  way  promulgate  them  farther."  *  In  the 
last  quarter  of  the  year  various  attempts  were  made  to  pub- 
lish them,  but  without  success.  Saunders  and  Ottley  offered 
;^5o  lor  the  book,  while  Fraser  would  definitely  offer  nothing. 
Carlyle  learned,  with  surprise,  that  a  man  might  be  famous 
and  yet  not  be  regarded  favorably  by  booksellers.  His 
mood  was  one  of  indifference  ;  he  was  reading  for  his 
Cromwell,  and  he  felt  that,  if  the  book  were  worthy,  it  would 
sooner  or  later  see  the  light.* 

What  terms  Fraser  did  offer  at  last  I  have  not  discovered, 
but  an  edition  of  a  thousand  copies  appeared  with  his  im- 
print, during  the  first  quarter  of  1841.  By  May  21,  he  paid 
Carlyle  ;^i5o  for  Heroes  and  Sartor,  which  the  recipient 
regards  as  a  miracle.^  The  cdttio  prineeps  is  a  comely  duo- 
decimo, plain  in  type,  strong  in  paper,  modest  in  binding,  at 
all  points  such  a  vesture  for  his  thought  as  the  Lover  of  the 
V'erities  would  not  be  ashamed  to  own.  Through  Emerson's 
brotherly  kindness,  America  had  been  for  Carlyle,  El  Dorado. 
It  was  through  him  alone  that  Sartor,  the  Miscellanies,  the 
French  Revolution  had  been  published  in  the  United  States, 


'  E.Corr.  I,  319  f.     July  2,  1S40. 
■'  The  first  edition  of  Heroes  sold  for  los.  6d. 
foi  9s. 


2  C.L.L.  I,  214. 
the  second  and  third 


.■^jir 


I'    i 


tf- 


if 


M    ::; 


ivi 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


to  the  greater  glory  of  their  author,  and  to  the  plenishing  of 
his  purse.  Naturally,  Carlyle  hoped  to  profit  by  this  book 
also,  and  sent  the  advanced  sheets  to  Emerson  by  one  of 
the  early  Cunarders,  to  be  bound  up  and  sold,  as  the  other 
works  had  been,  for  his  benefit.  But  his  growing  fame  was 
a  distinct  disadvantage  in  the  brave  days  of  old,  before 
international  copyright  was  thought  of.  Let  Emerson  tell 
the  tale.*  "  I  am  sorry  to  find  that  we  have  been  driven 
from  the  market  by  the  New  York  Pirates  in  the  affair  of 
the  Six  Lectures.  The  book  was  received  from  London  and 
for  sale  in  New  York  and  Boston  before  my  last  sheets 
arrived  by  the  Columbia.  Appleton,  in  New  York,  braved 
us  and  printed  it,  and  furthermore  told  us  that  he  intends  to 
print  in  future  everything  of  yours  that  shall  be  printed  in 
London."  And  he  begs  his  friend  to  send  him  a  duplicate 
manuscript  of  the  next  book  he  intends  to  publish,  and 
promises,  in  that  event,  "  to  keep  all  Appletons  and  Corsairs 
whatsoever  out  of  the  lists."  He  mentions,  besides,  a  curi- 
ous instance  of  Carlyle's  popularity.  "  The  New  York  news- 
papers print  the  book  in  chapters,  and  you  circulate  for  six 
cents  per  newspaper  at  the  corners  of  all  the  streets  in  New 
York  and  Boston,  gaining  in  fame  what  you  lose  in  coin."  * 

The  early  bibliography  of  Heroes  has  been  up  to  this 
time  obscure.  Even  Mr.  Anderson,  with  the  resources  of 
the  British  Museum  to  draw  on,  makes  no  mention  of  the 
second  and  third  editions,  in  the  most  complete  bibliography 
of  Carlyle  yet  published.*     Of  the  early  American  editions 

1  ErCorr.  I,  348  f.     April  30,  1841. 

*  E.-Corr.  I,  349.     April  30,  1841. 

*  Garnett's  Thomas  Carlyle,  flreat  Writers  Series,  Appendix.  It 
would  be  a  boon  to  all  Carlyleans  if  Dr.  S.  A.  Jones,  of  Ann  Arbor, 
could  be  induced  to  publish  his  bibliography  of  Carlyle.  It  contains  at 
least  a  hundred  items  more  than  Anderson's. 


INTNODVCTION 


Ivii 


and  their  relation  to  the  English  editions,  there  is,  to  the 
best  of  my  knowledge,  no  printed  information.  It  will, 
therefore,  not  be  amiss  to  offer  some  explanations.  Two 
first  and  two  second  editions  of  the  same  book,  to  say  noth- 
ing  of  the  one  '  third  '  edition  appearing  four  years  before 
a  second  '  third  '  edition,  are  rather  puzzling. 

Appleton's  reprint,  the  first  American  edition,  appeared 
very  shortly  after  the  original  London  edition.  It  is  also 
a  duodecimo,  much  the  same  in  appearance  as  the  honest 
book ;  imitating  the  title-page,  but  adding  to  the  name 
of  the  author  the  names  of  two  of  his  best  known  works. 
The  French  Revolution  and  Sartor  Resartus.  Carlyle  found 
the  copy  sent  to  him,  "  smart  on  the  surface ;  but  printed 
altogether  scandalously."  Towards  the  end  of  1841,  Fraser 
died,  and  Carlyle  transferred  his  business  to  the  firm 
which  still  prints  his  works,  Chapman  and  Hall.  The 
second  English  edition  was  called  for  in  the  following 
year.  It  was  a  tim.  of  distress  for  Carlyle.  Mrs.  Welsh, 
his  wife's  mother,  died  in  March,  and  he  was  obliged 
to  spend  some  time  at  Templand,  winding  up  her  estate. 
Mrs.  Carlyle  was  for  a  long  time  prostrated  by  the  blow, 
and  probably  Carlyle  had  not  the  time  to  give  the  book  the 
thorough  revision  which  he  gave  later.  He  was  very  sensi- 
tive as  to  all  printer's  errors  ;  and  the  careless  printing  of  the 
American  pirates  angered  him  more  than  their  high-handed 
spoiling  of  his  goods.  In  this  second  edition,  some  slips  in 
matters  of  fact  were  correctec  and  some  interesting  additions 
made.^  The  largest  change  was  in  the  passage  relating  to 
Cromwell's  vision,  on  page  243,  which  was  twice  revised  before 
it  suited  the  author.  The  Cromw  jll  pr.rt  of  Lecture  VI  bears 
.><o  many  marks  of  the  file,  because  Carlyle  was  now  at  work 

'  See  various  readings  at  foot  of  pp.  5,  74,  -8,  98,  108,  144,  153,  162, 
172.  179.  >97- 


'^' 


IVlll 


LECIUKES  ON  HEROES 


H 


0 


' 


upon  the  Letters  and  Speeches.  An  unauthorized  "seccnd 
edition  "  appears  with  Applcton's  imprint  in  the  same  year. 
It  is  not  the  same  as  the  first  edition,  but  is  set  up  by  a 
different  printer,'  and  conta'ns  a  greater  number  of  pages, 
all  of  which  goes  to  prove  that  the  American  as  well  as  the 
English  "  first  editions  "  were  exhausted  within  the  year  of 
publication.  Both  American  editions  deserve  Carlyle's  abuse 
for  bad  printing,  and  both  take  liberties  with  his  text.  It 
may  interest  students  of  American  spelling  to  know  that  this 
"second  edition  "of  Appleton'sis  moreold-fashionedthan  Car- 
lyle,  correcting  '  chemistry  '  to  '  chymistry,'  and  resolving  his 
revolutionary  '  forever '  into  the  two  words  of  our  rude  fore- 
fathers. I  have  by  me  also  an  American  "third  edition," 
so-called,  of  this  year,  bearing  the  imprint  "  Cincinnati  : 
Published  by  U.  P.  James,  No.  26  Pearl  St."  This  is  simply 
Appleton's  second  edition,  with  another  title-page,  which 
bears,  however,  Appleton's  cut  of  the  Aldus  dolphin  and 
anchor,  with  the  proud  motto  '  Aldi  Discip.  Americ'  The 
real  third  edition  did  not  appear  until  1846.  In  that  year, 
Chapman  and  Hall  published  Heroes  in  a  small,  handsome, 
nine-shilling  edition,  a  well-made  book  in  all  respects.  This, 
Carlyle  had  leisure  to  revise  carefully ;  and  the  text  is  prac- 
tically the  same  as  that  of  the  present  edition.  At  some  later 
period,  he  broke  up  his  long  paragraphs  into  short  ones,  and 
illustrated  the  agglutinative  theory  of  language  by  dropping; 
the  hyphen  in  words  he  had  joined  by  this  tie,  while  other 
people  still  keep  them  asunder  ;  for  example,  '  such  like  '  is 
first  'such-like'  and  then  'suchlike.'  This  love  of  hyphens 
grew  upon  him,  for  in  these  first  three  editions,  'widely-distant,' 
'  shining-down,'  etc.,  are  still  distinct  words.  None  of  these 
editions  contains  either  the  summary  or  index.  The  third 
American  edition  was  issued  also  in  1846,  by  Wiley  &  Putnam, 

1  The  first  American  edition  was  set  up  by  II.  Ludwig,  72  Vesey 
St.,  and  the  second  by  F.  C.  Gutierrez. 


INTRODUCTION 


lu 


in  their  "  Library  of  Choice  Reading,"  by  an  honorable 
arrangement  with  the  author.'  Four  other  English  editions 
appeared  during  Carlyle's  lifetime.  The  fourth  and  last 
separate  edition  appeared  in  1852  ;  and  the  three  others,  in 
the  collected  editions,  known  as  the  "  Collected  Works " 
(1856-1858),  bound  with  Sartor  Jiesartns,  the  "Library" 
(1869-1871),  and  the  "People's"  (1871-1874).  In  the 
"  People's  Edition,"  Heroes  has  been  selling  for  more  than 
twenty  years  at  the  rate  of  5000  copies  per  annum,  faster 
than  most  novels.  Of  the  various  editions  since  his  death, 
both  in  England  and  in  the  United  States,  I  am  unable  to 
give  here  a  complete  account.  Since  the  expiration  of  the 
copyright,  the  separate  editions  swarm.  Few  books  written 
in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  still  live,  fewer 
still  have  been  more  widely  diffused. 

IV 

"  Nothing  which  I  have  ever  done  pleases  me  so  ill.  They 
have  nothing  new,  nothing  that  to  me  is  not  old.  The  style 
of  them  requires  to  be  low-piiched,  as  like  talk  as  possible." 
In  this,  his  private  view  of  Heroes,  Carlyle  sums  up  and 
forestalls  much  later  criticism.  He  was  not  easily  pleased 
with  men  or  things,  with  himself,  or  his  work.  In  Sartor 
there  were,  in  his  opinion,  only  some  ten  pages  "rightly 
fused " ;  the  article  on  Scott  was  "  a  long  rigmarole," 
"deserving  instant  fire-death,"  and  Heroes,   "a  wearisome 

'  On  the  reverse  of  the  title  is  printed  "  Imprimatur.  This  Book, 
•  Heroes  and  Hero-Worship,'  I  have  read  over  and  revised  into  a  cor- 
rect form  for  Messrs.  Wiley  &  Putnam,  of  New  York,  who  are  hereby 
authorised,  they  and  they  only,  so  far  as  I  can  authorise  them,  to  print 
;i!id  vend  the  samf>  in  the  I'nifcd  States.  Thomas  Carlyle."  For  the 
stdry  of  the  negotiations  with  tliis  firm,  see  E.-Corr.  I,  1 19  ff.  In  spite 
of  Carlyle's  care,  it  is  not  impeccable  and  contains  such  misprints  as 
'  Woutan  '  for  '  Wuotan '  twice,  and '  Neutonic  '  for  '  Teutonic' 


-^'% 


ii 


vm 


i;  1^ 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


'i 


:^ir- 


1      1       :f 


it' 


triviality."     He  revised  this  verdict  when  he  read  the  book 
in  print ;  but  this  first  impression  dcst-rves  closer  scrutiny. 

From  the  beginning,  the  style  of  Carlyle  was  a  rock  of 
oflfence  to  the  critics  ;  and  their  remonstrances  or  abuse 
forced  him  to  consider  it.  His  manner  of  expression  was 
unique  ;  it  had  grown  with  his  growth ;  it  was  not  a  coat  to 
be  put  on  and  off,  to  be  cut  and  changed,  at  the  demands 
of  fashion  ;  it  was  his  skin,  in  which  he  must  live  and  die. 
In  Heroes  he  had  taken  thought  of  this  matter,  and  worked 
to  attain  certain  ends.  "The  style  requires  to  be  low- 
pitched,  as  like  talk  as  possible."  This  requirement  he  had 
striven  to  satisfy.  That  is,  Carlyle's  ordinary  style,  the 
genuine  Carlylese,  was,  for  once,  consciously  modified  by 
the  author. 

In  my  examination  of  what  is  generally  recognized  as 
Carlyle's  distinctive  manner,  the  manner  of  S,irior  Kcsnrlus,'' 
the  chief  marks  of  it  were  found  to  be  the  constant  impres- 
sion of  an  audible  voice,  the  wealth  of  allusion,  and  love  of 
the  concretely  picturesque.  Next  in  importance  were  three 
other  traits,  the  .stern,  strenuous  tone  of  that  voice  sounding 
through  it,  the  tone  of  one  with  whom  Ernst  ist  <las  Lehcn 
was  a  favorite  saying,  the  departure  from  Johnsonian  tra- 
dition, which  I)e  Quincey  and  Macaulay  r  ntain,  in  the 
looser  structure  of  the  sentence,  and  the  .n.Moyment  of 
humor,  the  genial  juxtaposition  of  thin'Ts  mote.  Further 
analysis  revealed  certain  formal  peculiarities  ;  a  habit  of 
grouping  words,  phrases,  and  sentences  in  threes,  a  triadic 
or  pyramidal  device  which  is  found  in  all  literature  ;  a  freer 
use  of  capitals  than  now  obtains,  making  Carlyle's  page 
resemble  a  page  f  f  old-fashioned  German,  or  of  Addison's 
Spectator;  a  strong  tendency  to  join  words  by  hyphens,  and 
even  t<  un  them  together  without  any  connecting  link,  a 
practice  which  subtly  modifies  the  meaning  ;  a  fashion  of 
1  Sartor,  /ntroduitioii,  §  vi. 


INTNODUCTION 


ixi 


jingling  words  by  merins  of  rhyme  or  alliteration ;  a  bewil- 
dering way  of  quoting  from  his  own  works  without  refer- 
ence, and  a  trick  of  reducing  proper  nouns  to  the  ranks,  by 
milking  them  plural  for  the  sake  of  picturesque  effect. 

Ail  these  marks  of  his  style,  all  these  mannerisms  are 
prt.'sent  in  Heroes.  The  tone  is  even  more  consistently 
earne-st  than  in  Sartor ;  it  is  the  tone  of  the  preacher,  who 
feels  that  he  stands  between  the  living  and  the  dead.  In 
consequence,  the  How  of  humor  is  under  restraint,  for  these 
two  are  contrary,  the  one  to  the  other.  There  is  nothing  in 
llnocs  like  the  "Miscellaneous-Historical,"  "Adamitism," 
or  "Tailors"  chapters  of  Sartor.  Almost  the  furthest 
length  our  author  goes  in  this  direction  is  the  mild  reference 
to  "Conservative'  and  '  Reform'  in  the  tale  of  King  Olaf's 
encounter  with  Thor.  Nothing  could  be  further  from  his 
nature  than  to  sow  his  discourse  with  jokes,  after  the  ordi- 
nary lecturer's  fashion,  ad  captamiiim  vul^us. 

Allusion  is  a  schoolmaster's  trick,  -\nd  must  be  always 
more  or  less  puzzling.  In  popular  c.  scourse  the  device 
must  be  used  sparingly,  and  it  must  not  be  far-fet,  or  it  will 
prrplex  and  obscure,  instead  of  aiding  and  enlightening  the 
understanding.  In  Heroes  the  references,  open  or  veiled, 
to  things  the  speaker  and  the  audience  both  have  in  com- 
mon are,  as  compared  with  those  in  Sartor,  few  and  scanty. 
They  are  generally  references  to  what  educated  Londoners 
niij;ht  be  supposed  to  know,  or  to  matters  dealt  with  in  the 
earlier  lectures  of  the  course.  The  allusions  to  the  Bible 
are  perhaps  the  most  frequent. 

What  is  true  of  allusion  is  true  of  metaphor.  In  this 
book,  where  the  effort  is  made  to  be  plain  and  popular, 
Carlyle's  natural  tendency  to  utter  his  thought  in  parable 
and  picture  is  kept  weil  in  hand. 

Again,  if  through  the  close-woven  texture  of  Sartor,  the 
written  thing,  the  tones  of  a  human  voice  sound  clear  in 


'  n 


Isii 


LECTURES  OAT  HEROES 


I 


once  iT'ui 
lis's  an(' 
instiiK  I 
chamber; 


mirth,  in  wail,  in  passion,  in  sadness,  how  much  more  in 
Herots,  il'<  ipoken  thing.  The  abrupt  rouj^hncss,  the  want 
of  finish,  thi-  sudden  turns  of  impassioned  harangue  are  al! 
given  back  h -re  to  the  life.  I'itch,  emphasis,  accent  are  all 
indicate''  •  the  devices  of  the  printer,  capitals,  it.ilics. 
dasnes,  n  irks  t  exclamation,  are  lavished  lest  the  reader 
shouKt  iii.ss  i.  siiade  of  moaning.  It  requires  no  force  of 
imagii.  ti  >;.  to  hear  through  all  the  lines,  as  unc  re.»ds  in 
his  qui.  Si  i  ,  the  hijr'i,  earnest  Annandaic  voice  barkin- 
a-  •  !)arkp  1  It  'ho  breathless  Londoners,  at  Wil 
'rrt|),,n  ■  1  .TL.  The  words  are  winged  words. 
Lit  '  I  !  :y  ring  in  our  ears  and  haunt  the  fin.' 
of  tli  -  'n  ;  they  insist  on  the  memory,  and  will 
not  be  p  '.  asifl'. 

Carlyle  achieves  in  Heroes  a  difficult  feat,  the  artistic  ren 
dering  ..f  oral  speech.  For  these  are  not  really  six  essays, 
but  six  glorified  versions  of  the  six  lectures,  in  something 
like  the  ideal  form  Carlyle  would  have  liked  to  give  them, 
had  time  and  the  art  of  public  speaking  been  fully  at  his 
comm-ind.  Now,  all  these  things,  restraint  in  the  use  of 
allusion  and  metaphor  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  approach 
to  the  diffuse,  direct,  plain  manner  of  oral  speech  on  the 
other,  make  for  popularity  and  help  to  explain  why  the  book 
sells  better,  year  after  year,  than  most  novels.  In  Heroes 
the  strong  wine  of  Carlyle's  style  is  allayed  and  softened  tu 
the  general  taste,  after  the  fashion  of  the  temperate  Greek  ,. 
Nothing  distinctive  is  given  up ;  the  minor  peculiarities 
are  ail  retained.  The  triadic  structure  is  perhaps  even 
more  protiounced  than  in  Sartor,  as  it  is  a  favorite  device 
of  orator  and  preacher  for  securing  emphasis  and  a  satisfy- 
ing rotundity  of  tone.  The  triads  may  be  threefold  groups 
ot  adjectives,  as  '  The  Pilgrim's  Progress  is  an  Allegory,  and 
a  beautiful,  just  and  serious  one';  or  of  nouns,  as  'mere 
quackery,  priestcraft  and  dupery ' ;  or  of  nouns  and  their 


wmoiwcrioN 


IxiU 


adjectives,  as  '  sheer  falsehoofi,  idle  fables,  allegory  afore- 
thought.' These  are  hy  f;ir  the  most  common.  More  rarely 
the  triads  consist  of  .absolute  phrases,  as  •  Hattles  with  the 
Koreish  and  Heathen,  quarrels  among  his  own  people, 
backslidings  of  his  own  wild  heart ' ;  or  of  present  parti- 
ciples, as  '  fighting,  counselling,  ordering.'  ( )ccasionally  the 
verbs  heap  up  according  to  this  rule  ;  for  instance,  '  I  he 
number  Twelve  .  .  .  which  could  be  halved,  quartered,  parted 
into  three,  into  six,'  where  the  last  verb  ts  not  really  needed. 
And  .^gain,  three  sentences  m.iy  form  a  symmetrical  group, 
•IS,  •  what  was  done,  what  is  doing,  what  will  be  done.'  'I'his 
triadic  structure  is  modified  by  lengthening  or  varying  one 
of  the  three  members;  and  s«imetimes  an  entire  passage 
m.iy  be  all  -cted  by  it.  In  the  short  portr.iit  of  Dante  in 
black  and  white,  there  are  five  tn.ds. 

The  picturesque  cipitals  are  hire,  though  not  sown  with 
as  free  .i  hand  as  in  S.irtor.     Only  important  words  arc  so 
singled  out.     Allied  to  this  is  the  trick  of  making  proper 
nouns  plural,  .u  denote  vividly  things  like  them  ;  for  instance, 
'delivtring  Calases,'  'its  Councils  of  Trebisond,  Councils  of 
Trent,  Athanasiuses,  iJantes,  Luthers'  'our  own  HIakes  and 
N'      >ns,'  'the    Shakspeares,    the    Goethes,'   '  Sh.ikspeares, 
Danios,  Goethes';  but  such  plurals  are  noi  frequent,  these 
live  being  the  only  examples  iu  the  first  lecture.     .Vor  is  the 
hyphenation  of  words,  with  the  corresponding  shift  of  icceti' 
quite  so  frequent ;  but  it  occurs  and  has  its  uses.     In  such 
phrase  as  'that  strange  island  Iceland,  -    burst-urr  the  geol- 
ogists tell  us,  by  fire,'  the  hyphen  is  necessary  :  '■  burst-up* 
conveys  a  shade  of  Carlylean   meaninjr.   whic'    •  hurst  up 
would  not  convey.     The  rhymes   and   all    era  .ons  are   no; 
many  ;  but  there  are  plenty  of  quotations  i  ..n    himself. 

One  distinctive  and  peculiar  mark  '  Carlyle's  style,  both 
here  and  elsewhere,  is  his  free  use  <.f  the  subjunctive, 
especially  of    -were'   and   'had'   without  tie   sign  of   the 


I 


Ixiv 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


Ht 


i 


Ml 

ill: 


subjunctive  ;  for  example,  '  That  great  mystery  of  Time,  were 
there  no  other,'  etc. ;  '  much  would  have  been  lost,  had  not 
Iceland  been  burst-up  from  the  sea.'  Sometimes  they  are 
combined  with  more  usual  forms  ;  as,  '  Were  there  no  books, 
any  great  man  would  grow  mythic'' ;  '  Had  this  lasted.  Lope 
would  have  grown,'  etc.  He  even  writes  '  let  him  live  where 
else  he  like,  in  what  pomps  and  prosperities  he  like.' 

"  The  style  requires  to  be  low-pitched,  as  like  talk  as  pos- 
sible." By  keeping  this  in  mind,  by  refraining  from  too 
great  elaboration  of  his  first  sketch,  Carlyle  succeeded  in 
making  his  style  more  popular,  more  readable  ;  but  he  went 
too  far.  In  some  respects  the  style  of  Heroes  is  pitched  too 
low,  and  is  too  much  like  talk. 

Carlyle's  work  has  stood  the  test  of  time  ;  the  years  have 
not  impaired  its  solidity.  The  battle  of  Leuthen  from  Frcil- 
erkk  is  the  best  text-book  the  German  military  schools  can 
put  into  the  hands  of  young  officers  ;  the  pettiness  and  the 
futility  of  the  younger  historians'  attacks  upon  the  French 
Revolution  is  one  of  Mr.  Saintsbury's  constant  joys  ;  ^  and 
even  the  boldest  iconoclast  has  not  raised  his  hammer 
against  the  Cromwell.  In  spite  of  its  name,  the  texture  of 
Sartor  is  closely  woven  and  firm  ;  but  it  is  not  so  with 
Heroes.  Compared  with  the  masterpieces,  it  is  almost 
flimsy.  It  is  an  ungrateful  task  to  discover  the  .skirts  of  the 
master ;  but  a  critical  edition  is  like  lago,  nothing  if  not 
critical.  Wherever  errors  in  matter  of  fact  have  been  dis- 
cernible, they  have  been  brought  to  book  in  note  or  various 
reading,  and,  as  far  as  possible,  corrected.  The  curious 
may  find  them  in  the  proper  places;  they  are  not  few,  but 
they  shall  not  be  mustered  and  paraded  together  by  the 
present  editor.  Comparison  with  the  earlier  texts  shows 
that  Carlyle,  like  any  other  man  working  at  speed,  would 
blunder  now  and  then.     He  was  capable  of  misquoting,  ut 

^  See  Corrected  Impressions. 


INTKOD  UC  r/OJV 


Uv 


mistaking  one  word  for  another,  of  confusing  Plato  with 
Aristotle,  and  '  euphuism  '  with  '  euphemism.'  He  was  not 
in  advance  of  his  age,  in  his  knowledge  of  Norse,  for  instance  ; 
he  is  fond  of  convenient  etymologies,  and  supports  and  op- 
poses the  fancies  of  Grimm  in  no  scientific  fashion.  Some- 
times he  fails  in  matter  of  fact.  Most  of  these  mistakes  he 
corrected  himself  ;  but  some  he  overlooked,  like  his  mis- 
direction of  the  Hegira.  Besides,  in  repeating  himself  in  his 
lectures  from  year  to  year,  his  memory  played  him  a  famil- 
iar but  scurvy  trick.  Every  one  who  gives  a  course  of  lec- 
tures knows  how  familiar  material,  by  dint  of  frequent 
handling,  loses  its  freshness,  how  the  sharp  angles  and  clear 
lines  are  worn  down  and  worn  out,  until  the  fact  which  looks 
the  same,  and  seems  to  be  the  same  as  of  yore,  has  become 
by  imperceptible  degrees  not  the  same.  Carlyle  worked 
fast,  trusted  to  his  memory,  and  did  not  take  pains  to  verify 
every  reference. 

The  errors  in  matters  of  fact  are  not  really  important. 
They  do  not  detract  from  the  value  of  the  book  as  a  whole, 
or  modify  in  any  way  its  teaching.  Hut  there  s  another 
class  of  error  which  cannot  be  passed  over  so  easily.  Car- 
lyle was  anything  but  a  worshipper  of  use  and  wont ;  and 
it  is  therefore  not  surprising  that  in  Heroes  he  takes  liber- 
ties with  the  code  of  usage  we  call  English  grammar.  In 
an  edition  of  this  kind,  intended  chiefly  for  readers  in  their 
pupilage,  when  the  authority  of  print  is  rarely  questioned, 
it  becomes  a  plain  duty  to  note  such  deviations  from  rule. 

Intentionally  pitching  the  style  low,  and  trying  to  make 
it  "  as  like  talk  as  possible,"  Carlyle  becomes  colloquial. 
His  Letters  show  that  he  was  fond  of  the  common  illegiti- 
mate use  of  'get';  and  it  frequently  blemishes  the  text. 
Such  examples  as  '  when  one  soul  has  .  .  .  ji^ot  its  sin  and 
misery  left  behind,'  'Luther  could  not  get  lived  in  honesty 
for  it,'  '  it  will  never  rest  till  it  get  to  work  free,'  can  hardly 


H 


if 


E'lPi 


\m- 


i 

i. 

1  :^ 

W' 

m  ■  *•' 

m 

Hi 

Ixvi 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


ii 


be  justified.  He  is  fond  of  such  expressions  as  '  this  of,' 
'that  of,'  'the  like'  and  'suchlike';  for  example,  'It  has 
always  seemed  to  me  extremely  curious  this  of  Voltaire.' 
Although  in  general  his  force  of  phrase  rivals  Shakspere's, 
he  is  not  always  happy  or  exact  in  the  use  of  single  words  ; 
for  instance,  'it  is  competent  to  all  men,'  'so  I'-'cumstanced,' 
'there  is  no  vocation  in  them  for  singing  it,'  'by  which  man 
works  all  things  whatsoever.'  From  haste  or  carelessness, 
he  is  guilty  at  times  of  downright  awkwardness,  a  disagree- 
able huddle  of  words,  which  he  would  not  wait  to  set  in  fair 
order.  Such  collocations  as  *  what  the  kind  of  thing  he  will 
do  is,'  '  the  sure  precursor  of  their  being  about  to  die,'  '  till 
they  had  learned  to  make  it  too  do  for  them,'  '  It  lies  there 
clear,  for  whosoever  will  take  his  spectacles  off  his  eyes  and 
honestly,  look  to  know '  must  be  surrendered  to  the  literary 
executioner  without  a  protest.  How  Carlyle  would  justify 
or  defend  them,  I  do  xnA  know.  Even  Johnson's  defence  of 
the  way  he  defined  '  pastern '  is  barred  him. 

Again,  in  hurried,  eager  speech,  imperfections  in  the 
structure  of  the  sentences  may  not  only  be  forgiven,  they 
may  even  be  welcomed,  as  tokens  of  sincerity.  The  speaker 
is  so  intent  upon  his  meaning  that  he  will  not  stop  to  pick 
and  choose  his  words,  and  build  his  sentences  by  rule.  But 
when  he  sets  forth  his  burning  words  in  ordered  and  deliber- 
ate prose,  he  must  submit  to  the  laws  that  govern  that  method 
of  expression.  But  these  laws  Carlyle,  in  Heroes,  cannot,  or, 
more  probably,  will  not  obey.  The  gerund-grinder  finds,  on 
laying  the  ordinary  measuring  rod  of  grammar  to  Carlyle's 
sentences,  that  many  are,  properly  speaking,  not  sentences  at 
all,  but  the  unorganized  material  for  sentences.  There  is 
inner  coherence  ;  the  meaning  is  clear ;  but  too  often  they 
are  bundles  of  phrases  from  which  sentences  are  made.  Fur 
example,  the  third  sentence  of  the  first  lecture,  though  con- 
veying a  plain  enough  meaning,  conforms  to  no  grammatica  1 


INTRODUCTION  Ixvii 

definition  :  "A  large  topic  ;  indeed,  an  illimitable  one  •  wide 
as  Universal  History."  Such  fragmentary,  abrupt,  irregular 
exclamatory  sentences  abound.  Perhaps  the  climax  in  abrupt- 
ness IS  the  last  sentence  in  Lecture  V,  on  Burns.  Of  the 
nme  sentences  which  make  up  the  portrait  of  Dantes  face 
and  soul,  four  contain  no  verb,  assert  nothing.  The  picture 
will  not  out  of  the  memory,  and  yet  a  fundamental  law  of 
usage  is  violated.  The  gerund-grinder  feels  his  conventional 
world  of  grammar  crumbling  around  him. 

It  almost  looks  as  if  Macaulay  were  right  about  the  London 
prentice.     Jealous  for  the  fame  of  the  master,  but  still  faith- 
ful to  the  craft  whereby  he  has  his  living,  the  poor  gerund- 
grinder  falters  where  he  firmly  trod.     He  can  only  conclude 
that  the  laws  of  grammar  are  no  more  binding  on  genius  than 
the  laws  of  morality  ;  and  that  Carlyle's  injuries  to  Priscian's 
head  are  to  be  condoned,  like  the  great  Goethe's  amours 
passagens.     Another  form  of  apology  suggests  itself.     Our 
author  defended    Mahomet,   on    good   Goethean   grounds 
namely,  that  restriction  in  one   direction  excuses  greater 
indulgence  on  all  other  sides  ;  and  the  argument  fits  the 
...atter  in  hand.     Carlyle  restricted  himself  on  many  sides  • 
but  he  took  his  license  in  the  fields  of,  —  grammar. 

But  all  such  blemishes  are  no  more  than  spots  upon  the 
sun  hardly  seen  by  the  unassisted  eye,  and  in  no  way 
hindering  the  radiation  of  light  and  life 


In  Heroes  the  series  of  lectures,  as  well  as  in  each  sepa- 
rate discourse,  the  plan  is  simplicity  itself.      Ruskin's  lee 
tares,  on  the  other  hand,  are  elaborate.       His  subject  is 
tjradually  unfolded,  touch  upon  touch,  surprise  after  surprise 
sometimes  the  main  theme  is  apparently  abandoned  mid- 
way, and  the  speaker  turns  passionately  to  something  more 


«1 


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1! 


Ixviii 


LECTURES  OX  HEROES 


\\ 


important,  as  in  Kinds'  Treasuries.  Generally,  he  begins 
low  in  tone  and  rises  in  emotion  from  height  to  heifjht  to  tht 
final  supreme  lyrical  appeal,  as  in  Queens"  Gardens.  There 
is  little  or  nothin?;  of  this  "  wanton  heed  "  in  Carlyle. 

His  heroes  are  of  six  kinds,  simply  and  solely  because  hi 
was  booked  to  give  two  lectures  a  week  for  three  weeks, 
half  a  dozen  being  a  sort  of  sacred  number  in  this  respect. 
If  he  had  been  required  to  give  seven  lectures  he  might  have 
included  Heyne  and  Copernicus  under  the  head  of  the  Hero 
as  Man  of  Science ;  or  if  eight,  he  might  have  dared,  in  his 
ignorance  of  art,  to  discourse  on  Michael  Angelo  as  the 
Hero-Artist.  His  classification  is  not  supposed  to  be  com- 
plete ;  and  it  is  nothing  to  say  that  he  has  left  niches  in  hi> 
Pantheon  unfilled,  when  he  was  strictly  limited  by  such  .i 
commonplace  fact  as  the  length  of  the  lecture  course,  as 
established  by  convention.  In  the  order  of  the  lectures  we 
are  conscious  of  a  descending  scale ;  the  hero  is  first  a 
divinity,  then  a  prophet,  then  a  rates,  poet-prophet,  then  a 
reforming  priest,  then  the  man  of  lette'-s,  who  is  both  priest 
and  poet,  if  necessary,  and  finally,  in  the  words  of  Byron, 

The  Hero  sunk  into  a  King. 

Such  a  plan  may  be  called  artificial,  but  it  is  as  plain  as  a 
diagram. 

The  same  is  true  of  each  lecture.  In  the  interests  of  the 
wayfaring  man,  apparently,  Carlyle  made  a  summary  for  this 
book ;  but  it  is  not  really  needed.  There  is  nothing  Emer- 
sonian about  the  plan  of  each  division.  In  the  phrase  of 
the  pulpit,  each  discourse  falls  naturally  under  three  heads. 
First  comes  a  general  introduction  ;  the  subject  is  put  for- 
ward nakedly,  without  any  artifice,  or  else  the  lecture  is 
linked  to  the  previous  one  by  a  brief  recapitulation.  In 
cases  where  the  facts  were  not  generally  known,  the  proper 
preface  is  a  luminous  account  of  the  hero's  environment,  tlie 


JNThODUCTION 


Ixix 


'(uintry  and  the  people  from  which  he  sprang.  Such  a 
review  would  Ix-  espet  ialiy  necessary  in  approaching  Odin 
and  Mahomet.  Next  in  order  is  a  brief  account  of  the  hero's 
life  and  labors.  If  the  biographical  facts  are  generally 
known,  as  in  the  case  -if  Siiakspere  and  Napoleon,  or  dis- 
creditable, as  in  the  case  of  Rousseau,  they  are  passed  over 
lightly.  Then  in  the  third  place,  a  characterization  of  the 
hero's  activity,  or  a  summing  up  of  his  achievement,  or  an 
explanation  of  his  signili(  ance,  or,  in  the  case  of  Cromwell 
and  Mahomet,  a  warm-hearted  defence  of  men  misunder- 
stood, rounds  out  and  ends  the  lecture. 

Two  recent  editf)rs  of  Jkrois,  Mr.  Edmund  (Josse  and  Mr. 
H.  I).  Traill,  feel  compelled  to  adopt  an  apologetic  or  patron- 
izing air  towards  the  book,  for  which  the  inaiics  of  Diogenes 
Tt'ufelsdrockh  must  feel  grateful.  Mr.  Gosse  finds  a  con- 
trast between  the  "  squalid  egotism  "  of  Carlyle's  character 
and  the  heroic  doctrine  he  preached,  though  this  opinion  is 
not  maintained  until  the  end  of  his  preface.  It  is  time  to 
enter  a  protest  against  this  facile  disparagement  of  a  great 
man.  His  books  may  be  bad  or  good  ;  his  doctrines  may 
l)e  true  or  false  ;  but  the  man,  Thomas  Carlyle,  deserves  the 
respect  of  his  kind.  The  main  authority  for  his  life  is 
Froude.  Xot  only  is  his  general  view  of  Carlyle's  character 
perverse  and  distorted,  as  of  a  "concave-convex  mirror,"  but 
he  cannot  be  depended  on  to  tell  the  truth  about  the  simplest 
fict;  he  cannot  even  copy  a  letter.'  He  has,  however,  the 
|)ul)lic  ear  and  by  means  of  a  readable  style  has  succeeded 
in  blackening  every  blot  in  his  friend's  character.  Kut  in 
spite  of  all  he  has  done,  when  all  is  known  and  after  the 

'  See  David  Wilson,  Mr.  Fronde  and  Carlyle  (Loud.,  1S9S),  for  a 
(omplfte  demolition  of  Froude,  tiuniyh  the  book  cannot  be  commended 
\vii:ioiu  re.Neue  fui  lone  and  temper.  It  would  be  most  desirable  if 
I'lnfissor  Norton  would  write  the  life  of  Carlyle,  or  at  least  publish  his 
personal  reminiscences  of  him. 


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Ixx 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


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worst  has  been  said,  the  real  c:arlyle  is  emerging,  growing 
clearer  and  greater  in  sight  of  all  who  have  eyes  and  will  use 
them.  As  to  Mr.  (iosse's  charge  of  want  of  heroism,  of  his 
life  being  a  sad  contrast  to  the  high  and  passionate  thought 
of  Heroes,  Carlyle's  own  words  are  his  loudest  accusers. 
Over  against  the  wild  and  whirling  words,  set  one  action 
which  puts  them  all  to  silence.  Let  a  man  who  lives  by  his 
pen,  and  who  puts  his  heart  and  his  life-blood  into  his  work 
lose  the  best  manuscript  he  ever  wrote,  the  unborn  book 
that  is  to  bring  him  fame  and  gold,  as  Carlyle  lost  the  first 
volume  of  The  French  Rei'olution,  and  let  him  bear  the  loss 
as  Carlyle  did.  He  will  then  have  earned  the  right  to  cast 
the  first  stone  at  him  for  want  of  fortitude,  but  not  before. 
The  judgment  of  the  gentle  natures,  of  men  like  Leigh  Hunt,* 
of  women  like  Mrs.  Browning,  who  knew  him  closely  at 
diff'"'ent  periods  of  his  life,  is  unanimous,  and  is  at  least  to 
be  set  over  against  second-hand  opinions,  mere  echoes  from 
the  most  misleading  of  biographies. 

Mr.  Traill  is  also  disparaging  and  warns  off  intending 
readers.  His  short  introduction  shows  uncertainty  of  touch, 
as  well  as  downright  error ;  but  it  brings  up  objections  to 
Heroes  which  at  least  deserve  consideration.  He  goes  so 
far  as  to  admit  that  there  are,  "  of  course,  some  fine  and  strik- 
ing things  in  the  volume  "  ;  but  he  finds  that  the  main  idea 
has  now  become  a  commonplace.  There  is,  besides,  "endless 
repetition";  the  subdivisions  of  the  subject  are  "obviously 

1  "  Thomas  Carlyle,  one  of  the  kindest  and  best,  as  well  as  most 
eloquent  of  men  ...  I  believe  that  what  Mr.  Carlyle  loves  better 
than  his  faultfinding,  with  all  its  eloquence,  is  the  face  of  any  human 
creature  that  looks  suffering  and  loving  and  sincere."  Leigh  Huni, 
Autobiography,  III,  227-231.     Lond.,  1850. 

"All  his  bitterness  is  love  with  the  point  reversed"  "You  come  to 
understand  perfectly  when  you  know  him,  that  his  bitterness  is  only 
melancholy,  and  his  s^com  sensibility."  Letters  of  Mrs.  Browning,  II, 
25,  27.     Lend.,  1897. 


rt 


INTRODUCTION 


Ixxi 


artificial  "  ;  and  "  a  sixfold  classification  of  the  various  forms 
of  the  heroic  .  .  .  has  only  been  accomplished  by  dint  of 
varying  the  definition  of  the  word."  There  is  undoubtedly 
something  in  these  charges,  especially  the  last  two  counts 
in  the  indictment.  Carlyle  himself  foresaw  such  an  objec- 
tion ;  he  felt  that  the  "  shapes  "  his  heroes  "  assume  "  are 
"  immeasurably  diverse  " ;  and  he  ascribed  the  immeasur- 
able diversity  to  the  world's  reception  of  them.  Whether  he 
proved  his  point,  may  be  questioned.  It  is  first  necessary 
to  examine  the  main  idea  of  the  book. 

The  theory  of  Heroes  is  as  simple  as  the  plan ;  the  main 
idea  is  in  Hume.  In  his  discussion  of  polytheism,  the  great 
sceptic  says  :  "  The  same  principles  naturally  deify  mortals, 
superior  in  power,  courage,  or  understanding,  zmd  produce 
litTo-worshipT^  After  dealing  for  three  years  as  a  public 
teacher  with  some  of  the  most  important  "  mortals  superior 
in  power,  courage,  or  understanding,"  Carlyle,  in  meditating 
his  fourth  course,  thinks  that  he  has  attained  to  some  general 
truth  regarding  them,  that  he  has  discovered  a  new  category, 
within  which  the  most  diverse  personalities  may  be  ranged. 
This  generalization  was  reached,  not  by  a  process  of  reason- 
ing, experiment,  deduction,  but  by,  apparently,  a  flash  of 
insight,  which,  though  it  came  suddenly,  had  been  long  in 
preparation.  The  seed-thought  had  been  lying  in  his  mind, 
unregarded  for  years.  In  his  essay, C(W//f  V  Works  {1^,2,2),  he 
quotes  several  long  extracts  from  the  work  of  a  "  continental 
humorist  "  called  Teufelsdrockh,  in  whose  book,  Die  Kleider, 
Ihr  Wcrden  mid  JVirken,  is  to  be  found  a  chapter,  "  On  the 
<;reatness  of  Great  Men."  None  of  the  passages  quoted  are 
t(j  be  found,  in  the  form  there  taken,  in  the  completed  Sartor, 
l)ut  they  may  well  be  parts  of  the  rejected  Fraser  article, 
which  was  afterwards  expanded  into  that  famous  book. 
l!ut  whether  the  extracts  are  what  they  pretend  to  be,  or 
arc  made  for  the  occasion,  they  contain  Heroes  in  embryo.* 
1  Essays,  Coethe''s  Works,  III,  i6o. 


w 


Ixxii 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


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III! 


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"  And  now,"  continues  the  Professor,  ..."  is  there  not  still 
in  the  world's  demeanour  towards  Great  Men,  enough  to 
make  the  old  practice  of  Hero-worship  intelligible,  nay  sig- 
nificant? Simpleton!  I  tell  thee  Hero-worship  still  con- 
tinues; it  is  the  only  creed  which  never  and  nowhere  grows 
or  can  grow  obsojete."  He  repeats  the  idea  in~his  essay  on 
Boswell,^  published  in  the  same  year.  The  devotion  of 
Boswell  to  Johnson  is  "A  cheeringjiroof  .  .  .that  Loyalty, 
Disciple^ihip,  all  that  was  ever  meant  by  Hero- Worship, 
lives  perermiaLly  jn  the  human^ bosom."  Hero-worship  is 
undoubtedly  an  offshoot  of  Teufelsdrockhian  philosophy. 
The  chapter  Or^^anic  Filaments  in  Sartor  sets  forth  clearly 
the  main  tenets  of  the  cult.  The  primary  thought  is  that  the 
great  man,  of  necessity,  calls  forth  the  h<>mageo£hrs  fellows. 
JT  andjajnade^a  hero,  or  demi-god,  by  tHem.  The  extended 
application  of  the  word  comes  later. 

In  1840,  "  hero"  meant,  most  probably,  to  nine  Englishmen 
out  of  ten,  a  general  officer  who  had  served  in  the  Peninsula, 
or  taken  part  in  the  last  great  fight  with  Napoleon,  and  who 
dined  year  by  year  with  "  the  Duke,"  at  Apsley  House,  on 
the  anniversary  of  Waterloo.  To  most  people  "  hero  "  means 
simply^  sol djer  "  and  implies  a  human^oiijj;;reafly  daring,  or 
greatly  enduring.  At  the  very  least,  the  idea  of  moral  excel- 
lence is  attached  to  it ;  and  for  good  reason.  To  apply  the 
term  to  a  wretched  impostor,  the  founder  of  a  false  religion, 
to  two  great  poets,  one  an  Englishman,  the  other  an  Italian, 
to  a  German  monk,  to  a  Scottish  preacher  who  was  rude  to 
his  queen,  to  an  English  Puritrn  rebel  who  killed  his  king, 
to  the  pompous  maker  of  a  dictionary,  to  a  miserable 
immoral  Frenchman,  to  the  Corsican  fiend  who  nearly 
destroyed  England,  must  have  seemed  at  first  I:  h  to 
Carlylc's  public,  monstrous  or  unintelligible.  In  A:  rice, 
as  we  have  seen,  he  had  at  least  one  hearer  he  could  not 
*  Essays,  BoswelTs  Life  of  Johnson,  III,  82. 


INTKOnUCTlON 


Ixxiii 


convince.  And  Mj^.  Traill,  in  thinking  that  the  term  "  hero  " 
can  appljMo  Carlyle's  six  classes  only  by  constantly  varying 
its  meaning,  is  not  alone. 

The  critic  who  cavils  at  Carlyle's  choice  might  well  go 
further.     If  the  sphere  of  heroism  is  widened  to  include  the 
world  of  letters,  for  example,  is  not  the  "  great  and  gallant 
Scott "  a  truer  hero  in  that  kind  than  Goethe,  or  Johnson,  or 
Burns,  or  Rousseau  ?    Does  he  not  meet  the  requirements  of 
Greek  tragedy,  —  the  just  man,  for  some  flaw  in  character, 
struck  down  by  Fate  in  his  prosperity,  and  moving  all  who 
behold  the  spectacle  to  terror  and  pity  >     If  Carlyle  wanted 
a  hero,  surely  "the  old  struggler,"  who  was  so  true  to  the 
fighting  Border  blood  he  came  of,  and  died  like  one  of  his 
own  spearmen  at  Flodden,  for  honor,  in  the  lost  battle  he 
would  never  own  was  lost,  is  a  nobler  figure  than  the  com- 
fortable Ho/rath,  the  weak-willed  gauger,  the  "dusty,  irascible 
pedagogue,"  or  the  half-mad  mate  of  the  cretinous  Levasseur. 
If  "  hero  "  implies  ethical  dignity  and  lofty  bearing  in  time 
of  deadliest  trial,  Scott  deserves  the  title.     And  Carlyle  has 
slight  excuse  for  passing  him  by.     He  had  been  a  witness 
of  his  great    career,   he  had  followed  out  the  loving  and 
masterly  record  of  his  life ;   he  had  even  the  privilege  that 
Tennyson  longed  for,  he  had  seen  the  white-faced,  shaggy 
figure  limping  down    Princes   Street.       But  the  mountain 
stood  too  close  to  his  own  door;  he  lived  too   near  it  to 
see  its  true  proportions. 

Dismissing,  however,  for  the  moment  the  notion  that  the 
little  critics  must  necessarily  be  right,  let  us  consider  the 
startling  alternative.  Let  us  suppose,  for  the  sake  of  argu- 
ment, tiiat  Carlyle  may  not  be  wrong.  There  is  at  least  a 
b.ire  jjossibility  that  his  conception  of  heroism  may,  after  all, 
be  greater  than  ours  ;  and  that  there  may  be  a  definition, 
otiier  than  the  popular  one,  which  will  apply,  that  will 
embrace  personalities  "so  immeasurably  diverse." 


fh: 


Ixxiv 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


11 


1 11 


I 


1. 


Carlyle  did  not  really  live  at  Cheyne  Row  ;  his  home  was 
in  Teufelsdrockh's  attic  in  the  Wahni^asse,  or  higher  still,  on 
Pisgah.  He  lived  upon  the  heights  of  life,  and  saw,  from 
his  eyrie,  the  vision  of  the  world  pass  before  him.  It  was  an 
unsubstantial  pageant,  frail  as  the  cloud  wreath  ;  but  it  was 
also  the  manifestation  of  (lod,  and  the  seer's  mind  was  filled 
with  unceasing  wonder  at  the  terror  and  splendor  of  it.  He- 
saw  more  of  it  than  we  purblind  dwellers  in  the  valley,  and 
he  saw  more  clearly ;  he  had  what  we  call  insight.  He  has 
tried  to  tell  us  what  he  discerned  to  be  the  fact.  Amonj; 
the  undistinguished  ant-like  masses  are  "representative  men,' 
"men  of  light  and  leading,"  "mortals  superior  in  power, 
courage,  or  understanding."  The  history  of  mankind  is  the 
biography  of  these,  its  great  men.  Their  moral  character 
may  be  imperfect,  their  courage  may  not  be  the  main  thing : 
but  they  are  "  superior,"  and  their  fellows  do  follow  them, 
admire  and  obey  them  to  the  point  of  worship.  Carlyle 
simply  states  the  fact.  Is  such  a  use  of  the  term  altogether 
wrong  ?  Take  the  most  unlikely  "  h*ro  "  of  all,  poor  demented 
Rousseau.  All  that  ordinary  eyes  perceive  is  the  moral 
squalor  of  his  life ;  but  Carlyle  sees  further,  and  discerns 
the  horrible  anti-climax  of  such  a  life.  The  creature  starves 
in  a  garret ;  but  his  thought  goes  out  from  him  and  touches 
man  after  man  and  converts  him  ;  he  has  fire  enough  in  his 
brain  to  set  France  ablaze.  The  governors  of  the  world 
could  do  nothing  for  him  ;  but  he  could  not  be  hindered 
from  sending  a  great  many  of  them  to  the  guillotine.  Uy 
virtue  of  his  "  understanding,"  he,  the  one  "  superior  "  mortal, 
wrought  on  his  fellow-mortals  to  do  this  thing.  In  their 
hero-worship,  they  offered  human  sacrifices. 

For  a  clear  definition,  we  have,  as  usual,  to  go  to  France. 
As  early  as  1850,  Emile  Monte'gut  framed  one  which  is  worth 
consideration.  "Heroes,"  he  says,  "are  those  men  who 
draw  up  into  themselves  and  concentrate  the  qualities  and 


INTtiODVCTION 


Ixxv 


thoughts  of  masses  of  men,  who  sum  up  an  epoch  or  create 
it,  ;ind  so  render  themselves  immortal  by  making  themselves 
the  masters  of  their  tin»e."'  Carlyic's  henjes  are  all  "mas- 
ters of  thtir  time."  It  is  hard  to  see  to  which  of  them  this 
definition  does  noi  apply,  and  why  "  hero,"  in  this  sense,  may 
not  be  regarded  as  a  lawful  extension  of  the  idea,  as  it  pre- 
sented itself  first  to  Carlyle's  mind  in  the  phrase  of  Hume. 
It  is  not  so  far  removed  from  the  popular  idea  of  the  hero, 
the  soldier  soul,  greatly  daring  or  enduring  greatly.  Courage 
is  an  outstanding  trait  in  almost  all.  Even  Rousseau  must 
have  needed  resolution,  before  he 

.  .  .  (i.isird  his  angry  heart 
Against  the  desolations  of  ll>e  world. 

.Nor  is  the  idea  of  moral  excellence  omitted  ;  Carlyle's  com- 
prehensive term  for  it  is  sincerity. 

This,  then,  is  the  central  thought  of  the  book.  The  corol- 
laries are  perhaps  more  open  to  question.  Not  only  were 
these  "diverse-looking''  characters  all  heroic,  but  they  were 
all  of  the  same  essential  stuff ;  and  that  essence  is  sincerity. 
"Sincerity,"  in  the  Carlylean  sense,  implies  superior  insight. 
These  ''heroes  "  did  really  see  into  the  heart  of  things,  and 
they  acted  "  sincerely  "  on  the  conviction  thereby  produced. 
Hy  this,  thj!Y_moved  and  moulded  whole  masses  of  the 
ra^ej__and  left  th^  mark  upon  their  time.  Sincerity  is 
his^reat  theme.  There  was  sincerity  in'paganism,  sin- 
cerity in  Mohammedanism,  in  the  doctrine  of  Rousseau, 
in  Naooleon's- earlv  simnnrt  of  the  principles  of  the  Revo- 
lution.^ That  the  "  hero "  might  have  taken  any  shape, 
that  the  warrior  might  have  been   a  poet,  and   the   poet 

'  "  Les  individus  qui  toncentrent  et  absorlient  en  eux  les  qualites  et 
les  pensees  des  masses,  qui  riisument  toute  une  epoque  ou  qui  la  creent, 
tt  (|ui  se  font  ainsi  immortels  en  se  faisant  les  maitres  du  temps." 
Rr.tii-  des  Deux  MonJci,  p.  722,  1850. 


It 


Ixxvi 


LKCTUttES  ON  HEKOES 


\  f 


a  statesman,  is  a  harder  saying.  Curlyie  says  he  mi^^fit ; 
and  there  is  much  virtue  in  the  word  ;  it  certainly  leaves 
ample  r(X)ni  and  verge  enough  for  possibility.  The  versa- 
tile men  of  the  Renaissance  might  be  brought  fcjrward 
in  support  of  this  position.  If  any  one  wishes  to  insist 
that  the  hero  must  have  been  what  he  was  and  nothin-: 
else,  it  is  a  pretty  quarrel,  but  it  cannot  be  settled  by  a 
sentence  or  two  in  a  preface.  Another  cardinal  doctrine 
is  that  "hero-worship,'"  this  reverence  for  "mortals  superior 
in  power,  couiage.  or  understanding "  exists  always  and 
everywhere.  In  proof,  he  chooses  his  "  heroes  "  from  widely 
different  ages,  races,  and  religions.  In  the  sixty  years  that 
have  elapsed  since  the  lectures  were  given,  such  men 
as  Kossuth,  Garibaldi,  Gladstone,  Lincoln,  Hismarck  art- 
further  proofs  that  the  history  of  races  is  to  be  read  in  tht 
biographies  of  their  great  men. 

Another  basal  idea  was  not  new.  It  had  been  uttered 
by  him  in  many  shapes  before,  and  was,  perhaps,  the  deepest 
of  his  convictions.  This  was  the  unreality  of  the  things 
seen.  He  felt  not  only  that  the  things  that  were  seen  were 
temporal,  but  that  they  were  spectral,  the  mere  shadow  of 
a  vast  hidden  Unnamable  Reality,  to  which  old-fashiontd 
people  had  no  hesitation  in  giving  a  name.  This  is  not 
with  him  a  literary  pose,  an  effective  philosophy  for  the 
purposes  of  book-making  :  it  is  his  constant  thought,  alonc 
with  hill  and  sky,  among  the  crowd,  in  his  pensive  citadel. 
The  thought  runs  through  all  his  correspondence,  giving  it 
distinction  and  melancholy  grace,  and  finds  its  most  elo 
quent  expression  in  the  famous  chapter  on  Natural  Super 
naturalism  in  Sartor.  It  is,  as  he  points  out,  a  very  old 
thought.  It  haunted  him  all  his  life.  Closely  allied  to  it 
is  his  conception  of  the  cosmos,  not  as  a  vast  whirligig,  :i 
well-contrived,  immeasurable  orrery,  but  as  a  vital,  chang 
'"g.  growing  unity  ;    not  a  machine,  but  a  tree.     A  third 


IXTKOtnCTJOtV 


Ixxvii 


itnportaiit  idea  is  that  "  Nature  is  a  just  umpire."  This  is 
not  very  unlike  the  more  familiar  formula,  "survival  of  the 
titltst,"  which  in  turn  is  not  unlike  the  old  phrase  about 
•ilje  finger  of  (Jod  in  history."  The  Carlylean  .statement 
that  every  system  that  was  ever  firmly  held  had  an  element 
of  truth  in  it  is  more  widely  recognized  since  the  theory  of 
(Volution  has  been  applied  to  the  history  of  religion. 

In  one  respect,  the  true  Carlylean  doctrine  of  hero- 
worship  has  been  much  misunderstood.  Mr.  Traill  speaks 
of  Carlyle's  *•  exhortation  to  hero-worsh  p."  And  the  general 
iiijprgssMLJs  that  Ca;-lyle  wish«j!s  iis_tn  wnrg^jp  1,;^  tifrTTi"i 
1) y  i mi tation,  and  it  is  uointed_oui  that  this  is  impoitsible 
or  undesir.il)le.  Carlyh-  preaches'~no  such  absurdity.  He 
insists  on  the  necessity  of  sinc»rit>,  and,  for  once  an 
optimist,  holds  out  the  alluring  prosp.-ci  that  all  iiavc  the 
power  to  be  sincere,  and  so  forming  a  ..  'ievin^  nation,  a 
nation  of  heroes.  Hut  the  notion  that  the  ma^^s  of  man- 
kind must  worship  these  heroes,  by  imitating  them,  by 
(loiuLj  their  deeds,  is  diametrically  opposed  to  Carlyle's 
m.im  thesis,  that  ih^UiistoixoLihj^raceJs  the  history  of 
its  great  men. 


VI 

It  is  curious  to  notice  how  early  the  first  aim  and  purpose 
of  Heroes  dropped  out  of  sight.  From  the  outset  people 
accepted  hero-worship  "  with  open  mouth  and  flashing  eyes," 
says  Mr.  Gosse,  as  a  new  gospel.  Maurice,  to  his  disgust, 
found  men  "  ranting  and  canting  after  Carlyle  in  all  direc- 
tions." In  other  words,  there  was  at  once  wide  recognition 
of  the  ethical  appeal  in  the  book,  but  the  first  intention  was 
not  really  ethical.  Carlyle's  aim,  as  set  forth  in  his  own 
words,  was  "  to  afford  some  glimpses  into  the  very  marrow 
of  the  world's  history."  It  is  true  that  he  speaks  of  "the 
divine  relation  .  .  .  which  at  all  times  unites  a  Great  Man  to 


m 


Ixxviii 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


III 


II 


I    i!      M 


)     I 


\    ! 


Other  men,"  and  of  the  profit  to  be  got  by  the  company  of 
the  great,  giving  the  idea  the  prestige  of  words  borrowed 
from  the  story  of  the  Transfiguration.  But  he  wants,  first 
and  foremost,  to  interpret  history  and  to  force  upon  a  theory 
a  sixfold  application. 

The  value  of  history  as  the  first  requisite  of  culture  is  too 
well  known  to  be  insisted  on.  Mr.  Mallock's  pleasant  argu- 
ment in  The  Ncth  Republic  leaves  little  to  be  added.  History 
gives  us  background,  perspective,  prevents  us  from  beinj; 
merely  temporal  people,  living  only  in  the  present,  and  scj 
helps  to  form  the  broader,  more  open  mind,  which  marks  the 
man  of  true  cultivation.  There  is,  then,  a  great  and  mani- 
fest advantage  in  going  to  a  teacher  who  professes  to  give 
us,  not  the  flesh  and  outward  coverings,  much  less  the  dry 
bones,  of  history,  but  the  "  very  marrow  "  of  it.  If  he  is 
able  to  fulfill  his  large  promises,  he  will  not  only  shorten  the 
time  of  learning  most  difficult  lessons,  especially  if  we  come 
to  him  early  in  our  intellectual  rise  and  progress,  but  he 
will  make  us  "lords  of  truth,"  by  which  we  shall  live 
and  grow.  Few  things  can  be  better  worth  knowing  than 
the  inner  meaning  of  what  the  race  has  done  upon  this 
planet. 

As  Carlyle  reads  history  he  finds  that  the  "  marrow  "  of  it 
is  the  heroism  of  the  "  mortals  superior  in  power,  courage,  cjr 
understanding."  This  he  advances,  not  with  hesitation  as 
a  working  hypothesis,  but  confidently  as  a  final  generaliza 
tion.  Even  if  it  be  granted  that  it  is  only  a  working  hypoth 
esis,  the  history  of  every  department  of  human  knowledge 
is  largely  an  accoynt  of  excellent  hypotheses,  which  served 
their  day  and  helped  to  advance  the  science  one  sta;;e 
further.  That  this  is  an  exploded  theory,  however,  the 
critics  do  not  contend.  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison  thinks' 
that  Heroes  is  "apt  to  seem  obvious,  conntt,  the  emphatic 

»  Studies  in  Early  Victorinn  Literature,  54  f.     Lond.,  1895. 


INTRODUCTION 


Ixzix 


assertion  of  a  truism,  that  no  one  disputes."  He  further 
asserts  that  "nearly  all  the  judgments"  Carlyle  passes  in 
this  book  "  are  not  only  sound,  but  now  almost  universally 
accepted." 

To  call  Heroes  an  introduction  to  the  study  of  history 
would  be  an  injustice.    The  name  suggests  the  dry,  cautious 
handbooks  of  the  specialists,  intended  for  the  use  of  stu- 
dents; but  an  introduction  to  the  study  of  history  it  is  none 
the  less.     It  is  meant  for  all  classes  whose  reading  extends 
beyond  the  newspaper  and  the  novel.    For  all  but  the  severe 
student  its  value   must  long  be   undiminished.     Errors  it 
contains  of  the  lesser  kind  in  matters  of  fact ;  but  they 
spring  from    haste   and  over-familiarity  with   the   subject, 
never  from  ignorance  or  shallow  study.    Carlyle  never  takes 
your  breath  away,  as  Emerson  does  when  he  makes  Chaucer 
borrow  from  Caxton.'     The  results  in  I/erocs  were  gathered 
slowly   through    long    years   of    study;    and    the   student 
brought  to  his  work  the  patience  of  the  scholar  and  the 
strange  endowment  we  call  genius. 

Even  Mr.  Traill,  the  least  enthusiastic  of  recent  editors, 
confesses  that  there  are  »  fine  and  striking  things  "  in  Heroel 
a  statement  which  is  quite  safe.  Among  the  purple  passages 
must  be  reckoned  the  sketch  of  Arabia  and  the  Arabs,  the 
portraits  of  Dante  and  I.uther,  the  paragraphs  containing 
tlie  essence  of  the  Koran,  the  CommeJia,  and  the  Thrhredci, 
the  story  of  Francesca  da  Rimini,  the  defence  of  Luther,' 
bf^Mnning,  "  I,  for  one,  pardon,"  the  defence  of  Knox,  begin- 
niiif,',  "  It  seems  to  me  hard  measure,"  the  praise  of  the 
new  power  of  literature,  the  view  of  Shakspere's  kingship 
over  the  Anglian  world,  the  perorations  on  Mahomet  and 
(  roinwell,  and   almost  the    whole   account   of   Burns.     To 

'  •Hut  Chaucer  is  a  great  borrower.     Chaucer,  it  seems,  drew  con- 
tinual,)' through  Lydgat-  and  Caxton,  from  (Juido  di  Colonna."    K^pre- 

"■"I"',  e  Men,  ShaksfvareA,  y>,G.     I..,n(l..  1X76. 


Nil 


f> 


n 


'      3 
I 

■ 
■■ 

V 


IXXX 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


appreciate  the  power  and  freshness  of  such  a  book,  we  must 
put  ourselves  in  the  place  of  Carlyle's  audience  and  his  first 
readers.  To  them  every  one  of  Carlyle's  heroes  was  pre- 
sented in  a  new  and  startling  light.  There  was,  first,  the 
outstanding  feat  of  completely  reversing  the  general  esti- 
mate of  Mahomet  and  Cromwell.  The  consecrated  verdict 
of  centuries  was  shown  to  be  utterly  false ;  and  the  tide  of 
public  opinion  was  turned  back  and  set  flowing  in  thie  con- 
trary direction  to  that  which  it  had  followed  so  long.  Only 
a  Hercules  could  perform  two  such  labors.  In  his  essay  on 
Burns,  in  1828,  he  had  really  set  the  outside  world  right 
about  Scotland's  darling  poet,  and  here  he  follows  up  his 
work  by  giving  the  essay  in  brief.  Both  he  and  Macaulay 
wrote  articles  on  Croker's  Boswell,  and,  without  question, 
Carlyle's  treatment  of  the  great  doctor  and  his  biographer 
is  the  wiser  and  kindlier  of  the  two.  In  Heroes  he  repeats 
himself  with  marked  effect.  The  world  has  gone  with 
Carlyle,  not  with  Macaulay.  At  this  time  Knox  was  un- 
known or  misunderstood  ;  Carlyle  gives  him  at  least  his 
due.  In  1840  neither  the  glory  of  Norse  literature  nor  the 
power  of  Dante  was  rightly  valued  ;  but  Carlyle  is  their 
first  great  interpreter.  To  have  done  these  separate  feats 
would  have  made  the  fortune  of  half  a  dozen  books  of 
half  a  dozen  authors ;  Carlyle  combines  them  all  within  the 
covers  of  one  small  duodecimo.  Nor  does  the  book  lack 
the  good  word  of  specialists.  Vigfusson  notes  with  warm 
approval  Carlyle's  insight  in  reading  aright  the  tale  of  Olaf's 
meeting  with  Thor,  whereas  the  pedants  had  been  content 
to  point  out  that  the  incident  was  spurious.  Again,  Sycd 
Ameer  AH  •  ranks  Carlyle  with  Sedillot,  CKlsner,  Deutsch. 
and  Bartht'lemy  St.  Hilaire,  as  those  to  whom  the  world  owes 
right  ideas  regarding  Islam. 

1  See  A  Critical  Examination  of  the  Life  and  Teachiti^s  of  Mohammed, 
V,  viii.     Lond.,  1873. 


/ArTA'ODCrcr/ON 


Ixxxi 


as 


Perhaps  the  twentieth  century  may  rem.mW  r-.,...i.  o„, 
the  m.m.tahle   portn^r^aint^r'  pfJu^^.e.      E^i^^T^^n 
pra.sed  h.s  "  portrait-eating.  portrait-painting  eyes,"  and  his 
power  .r  this  art  is  beyond  d.spute.     When  he  sets  himself 
to  work  dehberately.  as  in  the  full-length  portraits,  body,  soul, 
and  sp.nt,  of  Wordsworth  or  Southey,  in  the  Iir„:oLnJ, 
the  result  ,s  hardly  more  admirable  than  when  he  dashes  off 
h.s  careless  sketches  in  a  familiar  letter,  as  when  he  limns  to 
the  hfe  D.ckens  and  Lord  and  Lady  Holland  in  a  pa<.e  " 
He  .s  a  master  of  the  adjective  and  can   render  a  face 
figure,  and  character  in  half  a  line."     Who  can  forget  the 
refractory  juryman,  "a  thick-sot,  flat-headed   w>(."-who 
;'erected  himself  in  his  chair,"  and  owned  "a  head  all  cheeks 
jaw,  and  no  brow ;  of  shape  somewhat  like  a  great  ball  of 
putty  dropped  f^om  a  height"?     /ferocs  may  be  regarded 
as  a  portrait  gallery ;  but  the  sitters  were  not  merely^^men  • 
they  were  also  great  movements  of  the  race.     The  roll  of 
names  is  long  and  august;    Odin,  or  better  still,  in    Car- 
lyle  s  own  phrase,  the  type-Norseman,  and  one  aspect  of 
pr.mmve  religion,  for  fear  played  as  great  a  part  as  won- 
der m  the  makmg  of  it ;  Mahomet  and  the  rise  of  Islam  • 
)ante    "the  voice  of  ten  silent  centuries,"  and  mediaeval 
Catholicism  ;  the  Reformation,  with   Luther  and  Knox  as 
>ts  priests  and  Cromwell  as  its  soldier  ;  Johnson  and  Burns 
as  representing  the  new  literature  of  power,  which  is  doing 
he  work  of  church,  and  university,  and  parliament;   and 
».nally  the  trench  Revolution,  with  Rousseau  for  its  evan- 
gelist and   Napoleon  for   its  champion.     To  go  to   Heroes 

.lu'.?e  can'dn"""^  "'""  \  ''"'"  ^''  ^'"g-Phi-.     F  do  not  think 
ZnrT\     T      '"'"^  ^"  occaslo„al  addition  to  the  fine  gallerv  of 

,  ^.         ;  -  -'^ee  C. /../..  I,  ,89. 

'•Ro.eL        /'''   '^^'^'"'"'"'''^-^   oi   Hallam,  a„U.  xviii,  foot;   and 
Rogers  (an  elegant,  politely  malignant  old  lady)  "     CI  L   II   ^2.^ 


Ixxxii 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


1  1 


ii  ! 


I 


i: 


W 


for  minute,  solid,  moderate  statements,  as  one  would  go  to 
Gardiner  or  von  Ranke,  is  a  mistake ;  but  for  suggestion, 
and  stimulus  to  seek  further  into  the  spiritual  history  of 
the  race,  there  is  simply  no  one  book  like  it.  The  whole 
theory  of  hero-worship  may  be  thrown  overboard  without 
really  injuring  the  book.  Where  else  between  two  covers, 
within  such  narrow  compass,  can  be  found  so  many  start- 
ing points  for  thought  on  the  story  of  mankind?  Repre- 
sentative Men  is  like  it,  and  a  book  of  value  in  its  way, 
but  plainly  derived  from  Heroes.  Rich  as  it  is  in  thought, 
it  does  not  kindle,  it  does  not  convince,  notably  in  the 
case  of  Swedenborg.  The  tone  is  contemplative ;  the 
writer  does  not  seem  to  care  whether  you  take  his  teach- 
ing or  leave  it.  Heroes  is  charged  with  emotion  which 
carries  the  reader  along  with  it ;  it  has  the  accent  of 
one  who  is  in  deadly  earnest  and  believes  every  word 
he  says. 

This,  the  first  intention  of  Heroes,  readers  and  critics 
have,  with  one  consent,  allowed  to  take  second  place ;  and 
one  and  all  pay  its  author  the  compliment  of  taking  him 
not  for  a  teacher  of  history  but  a  teacher  of  righteousness. 
The  question  of  some  critics,  "  What  are  we  to  learn  from 
all  this  ?  "  need  not  remain  long  unanswered.  Much  every 
way.  There  are  three  ways  of  regarding  the  book.  It  is  a 
new  interpretation  of  history,  or  a  vantage  ground  for  fresh 
points  of  view,  or  a  new  gospel  of  and  for  the  individual. 
At  lowest,  the  argument  of  Matthew  .\rnold  for  Byron,  that 
the  mere  spectacle  of  such  splendid  energy  of  heart  and 
brain  at  work  strengthens  the  beholder,  applies  more  aptly 
to  Carlyle.  His  view  of  history  is  distinctly  religious ; 
to  him  history  is  an  "  inarticulate  Bible  "  ;  and  it  is  natural 
and  just  to  recognize  in  him  the  English  moralist  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  as  in  Addison  the  moralist  of  the  eighteentli. 
The  ethical  appeal  of  Heroes  is  felt  throughout ;  but  there  is 


INTRODUCTION 


Izxziii 


surprisingly  little  of  direct  "exhortation  to  hero-worship" 
in  it.     The  exhortation  is  unspoken,  implicit. 
Some  adverse  opinions  dematid  attention  a^  this 


j|flU}t. 


One  of  the  latest  appreciations  of  Carlyle  is  by  Mr.  Frederic 
Harrison.'   uHe  considers  The  French  Rnolution  to  be  his 
masterpiece  and  puts  Heroes  next,  an  opinion  in  which  he 
probably  stands  alone.     After  commending  Heroes  for  good 
work  done,  especially  on  its  first  appearance,  he  offers  two 
objections.      First,  the  "whole  idea"  of   Heroes  is  "per- 
verted" because  it  finus  room   for   no  Catholic  chief   or 
priest.     Mr.  Harrison  mentions  Dante,  but  seems  to  forget 
that  he  is,  in  the  world  of  literature,  the  grand  spokesman 
of  the  Old  Faith,  and  that  to  appreciate  him  aright  is  to 
appreciate  aright  the   religion  for  which  he  stands.     Our 
critic  forgets  also  that  when  Heroes  appeared  the  Oxford 
Movement  and  the   "no  Popery"  cry  were  engaging  the 
mind  of  England.     Carlyle  goes  out  of  his  way  to  speak  of 
tiiese  in  his  lecture  on  the  great  schismatic,  Luther,  and  he 
certainly  does  Catholicism  justice.     Every  reference  to  it  is 
marked  by  moderation.     This  is  an  imperfect  world ;  and 
when  an  Ultramontane  or  a  Comtist,  for  that  matter,  esti- 
ni.ites  Puritanism  as  fairly,  it  will  be  time  to  quarrel  with 
Carlyle,  the  born  Presbyterian,  for  his  "  unjust  hatred  of  the 
Catholic  religion." 

In  the  next  place,  Mr.  Harrison  rebukes  Carlyle  for 
'incoherence"  in  calling  Burns  "the  most  gifted  Rrifioh 
$oul  "  of  the  eJP^htppnth  rpnf.ry,  ^r^^  says  fiij-f hpr  »  Perhaps 
the  whole  cycle  of  Sartorian  extravaganza  contains  no  say- 
ing so  futile  as  the  complaint  that  the  British  nation  in  the 
great  war  with  France  entrusted  their  destinies  to  a  phan- 
tasmic  Pitt,  instead  of  to  '  the  thunder-god,  Robert  Burns.' " 
It  IS  well  in  some  cases  to  verify  your  references.  Carlyle 
belongs  to  a  nation  noted  for  its  caution.     The  statement 

1  Studies  in  Early  Victorian  Literature,  53-58.     Lond.,  1895. 


•M 


,'J  i 


Ixxxiv 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


11' 


1: 


In 


ii. 

11  li 


of  Burns's  natural  endowment  he  offers  tentatively;  and 
the  second  he  did  not  make  at  all,  A  reference  to  the 
lecture  will  show  that  what  Carlyle  did  say  was  that  he 
could  not  rejoice  at  the  spectacle  of  a  Europe  on  the  verge 
of  a  P'rench  Revolution,  and  finding  no  use  for  a  Robert 
Burns  except  in  gauging  beer.  The  "  incoherence  "  is  not 
Carlyle's.  Indeed,  "incoherence"  is  hardly  the  term  for 
such  an  error ;  but  it  is  thus  that  criticism  is  written.* 

Matthew  Arnold  "  never  much  liked  Carlyle."  "  He 
seemed  to  me  to  be  carrying  coals  to  Newcastle,  as  our 
proverb  says;  preaching  earnestness  to  a  nation  which  had 
plenty  of  it  by  nature."  ^  In  the  lecture  on  Emerson,  he 
disposes  of  Carlyle  in  the  high  Arnoldian  fashion  we  know 
so  well.  There  he  defines  the  articles  of  the  true  Carlylean 
faith  as  four,  —  the  dignity  of  labor,  the  necessity  of  right- 
eousness, the  love  of  veracity,  the  hatred  of  shams,  —  and 
uses  them  to  upset  Carlyle's  thesis  that  happiness  is  not 
the  main  thini;.'  Against  his  first  statement  it  is  sufficient 
to  set  the  opinion  of  Harriet  Martineau,  who  certainly  knew 
her  world.  "  He  has  .  .  .  infused  into  the  mind  of  the 
English  nation  a  sincerity,  earnestness,  herlthfuhiess,  and 
courage  which  can  be  appreciated  only  by  those  who  art- 
old  enough  to  tell  what  was  our  morbid  state  when  Byron 
was  the  representative  of  our  temper,  the  Clapham  Church 
of  our  religion,  and  the  rotten-borough  system  of  our  politi- 
cal morality."  *  Compared  with  the  second  statement,  Mr. 
Leslie  Stephen's  view  is  much  more  satisfactory.     In  his 


'  A  similar  error  which  tends  to  throw  doubt  on  all  that  is  good  in 
the  book  is  the  egregious  statement  "that  no  one  of  Shakspere's  play- 
was  published   with  his  name  in   his  lifetime."      Choice  of  Hooks,  6( 
Lend.,  1 886. 

'^  Letters  of  Matthew  Arnolii,  II,  191. 

^  Discourses  in  America,  199.     l.ond.,  lSg6. 

*  Autobiography,  I,  292.     Boston,  1 878. 


\ 


INTRODUCTION 


Uucxv 


opinion,  Carlyle's  essential  teaching  is,  first,  that  morality 
or  justice  is  the  one  indispensable  thing;  justice  means 
the  law  of  God ;  the  sole  test  of  any  human  law  is  con- 
formity to  the  divine  law;  and,  last,  "all  history  is  an 
inarticulate  Bible,  and  in  a  dim,  intricate  way  reveals  the 
divine  appearances  in  this  lower  world."  >  In  other  words, 
Carlyle  discerns  as  ultimate  truth  a  moral  order  in  the 
universe ;  and  nowhere  does  he  preach  this  doctrine  more 
directly  and  emphatically  than  in  Heroes.  It  is  this,  rather 
than  "exhortation  to  hero-worship,"  which  explains  the 
ethical  appeal  of  the  book. 

The  parents  of  Carlyle  chose  wisely  in  bringing  him  up 
for  the  ministry.     Though  he  never  wagged  his  paw  in  an 
orthodox  pulpit,  he  was  a  preacher  of  righteousness  all  his 
days ;  and  he  succeeded  better  than  most  in  the  matter  of 
practice.     The  very  "  repetition  "  Traill  objects  to  is  part 
of  the  preacher's  art ;  Landor's  heroine  beat  her  words  in 
upon  her  nurse's  knee;  and  Arnold  himself  favors  an  itera- 
tion that  sometimes  deserves  the  epithet  Falstaff  fitted  to 
Prince  Hal's.     Years  before  his  power  was  generally  recog- 
nizfd,  Goethe  saw  this  preaching  gift  in  his  obscure  Scottish 
translator  and  correspondent,  and  spoke  a  prophecy  or  ere 
he  went.     "Carlyle  is  a  moral  force  of  great  si-.nficance. 
He  has  a  great  future  before  him,  and  indeed  one  can  see 
no  end  to  all  that  he  will  do  and  effect  by  his  influence.'" 
(Joethe  died   without  seeing  more  than  the  dawn  of  that 
mrtu.;nce  ;  but  now,  across  the  gap  of  seventy  years,  we  can 
see  how  true  a  word  that  was. 

To  estimate  rightly  Carlyle's  influence,  it  is  necessary  to 
revert  once  more  to  his  first  audience  and  the  ideas  of  1840. 
The  England  of  that  day  had  Just  passed  through  the  blood- 
less revolution  of  the  Reform  I5ill,  which  shifted  the  power 

1  llmirs  in  ii  Lihrary,  Carlyle's  Kt/n,s,  IH,  285.     Lond.,  1892. 
-  Lch.niiiinii  and  O'.  Coir.  (July  -3,  iS::;),  5^. 


i.  r 


Iw 


1 


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i:. 


l» 


Ixxxvi 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


once  for  all  from  the  aristocracy  to  the  middle  class.  There 
was  further  revolution  brewing  in  the  spread  of  Chartism. 
Undue  value  was  set  on  the  new  machinery  of  government  by 
ballot-box ;  and  undue  importance  was  attached  to  the  action 
of  the  masses.  The  prevailing  social  ideals  were  not  earnest, 
Matthew  Arnold  notwithstanding.  They  were  limited  and 
conventional.  It  was  the  era  of  the  dilettante  and  the 
dandy.  The  Book  of  Snobs  was  unwritten  ;  but  the  snobs 
were  all  ready  to  be  caught  and  caged  and  exhibited  in  the 
famous  stiii'Num  gatherum.  The  prevailing  tone  of  English 
society  as  given  by  Jane  Austen  is  tiie  same  as  in  The  New- 
comes  and  yanity  Fair.  Harriet  Martineau  indicts  in  plain 
terms  the  London  she  knew,  literary  London,  for  flattery, 
flirtation,  insincerity,  selfishness,  and  supports  each  count 
with  very  strong  evidence.  Tennyson,  who  had  not  yet  come 
to  his  own,  was  finding  reasons  for  cursing  "  the  social  wants 
that  .sin  against  the  strength  of  youth,"  as  well  as  "the 
social  lies."  Dickens  and  Kingsley  were  gathering  knowl- 
edge and  experience  to  be  used  in  their  crusades.  Tlit 
London  of  the  Fraserians,  of  D'Orsay  and  the  Countess  of 
Blessington,  of  Bulwer,  of  "Black  Bottle"  Cardigan,  of 
Theodore  Hook,  of  the  various  "  Circumlocution  Offices," 
the  drinking,  duelling,  practical-joking  London  of  the  day,  for 
which  the  aristocracy  set  the  tone,  was  not  unduly  earnest. 
London  society  was  then  small ;  at  a  much  later  period,  L.idy 
Palmerston  was  able  to  write  the  invitations  for  h  r  p  srtics 
with  her  own  hand.  It  was  from  this  small  upper  class  th;U 
Carlyle's  audiences  were  drawn ;  and  it  is  his  triumph  that 
with  everything  against  him,  nationality,  accent,  manner,  and, 
most  of  all,  his  message,  which  ran  directly  counter  to  the  tend- 
encies of  the  time,  he  not  only  secured  a  hearing  but  engaged 
a  host  of  enthusiastic  followers.  The  two  great  voices  of  the 
time  were  Newman  and  Carlyle  ;  the  one  insisting  on  the 
value  of  the  oldest  clothes,  and  the  other,  on  getting  rid  of 


M 


iNTRODUCTIOff 


Ixxxvii 


them.   Now  Newman  appeals  chiefly  to  a  church,  to  a  literary 
remnant ;  but  Carlyle  still  speaks  to  the  mass  of  men. 

Herm    made    itself    felt    as    an    influence    at    once. 
Maurice's  complaint  shows  how  soon  the  leaven  began  to 
work.      Nine  years  later  an  acute  foreign  observer  notes 
how  far  it  had  spread   through  the  whole  lump.      "This 
rehabilitation  of  the  hero  is  to-day  of  all  Carlyle's  ideas  the 
most  widely  spread,  and  the  one  which  has  made  head  most 
rapidly.      At  the  present  time  it  is  to  be  met  everywhere  in 
England.     You  cannot  open  a  book  dealing  with  philosophy, 
or  read  an  ordinary  review  article,  without  encountering  it,' 
at  one  time  combated,  at  another  celebrated  with  enthusi- 
asm.    This  idea  is  the  basis  of  Emerson's  philosophy,  and 
has  inspired  all  his  essays  on  confidence  in  oneself,  and  the 
power  of  the  individual.  "  >     The  last  part  of  this  assertion 
is,  perhaps,  too  strong,  but  the  idea  of  Heroes  influenced 
Emerson  without   doubt.      One   biographer   of   Ruskin   is 
inclined  to  set  down  his  early  resolution  to  do  something, 
and  to  be  something,  to  having  read  Heroes^      Professor 
Allen   traces   a   similar  influence  in  the  case  of   Phillips 
Brooks.     If  Carlyle  through  Hero,s  had  done  no  more  than 
teach  these  three  teachers  of  men  and  to  touch  through 
them  the  thousands  who  have  felt  the  power  of  their  written 
or   spoken    words,    his  service  to  the  race  would  be  quite 
intalculable.    Hut  these  are  not  the  only  three  mighty  men ; 
and  the  book  still  sells  by  thousands  of  copies  every  year! 
In  spite  of  critics'  sneers  or  faint  praise,  in  spite  of  the 
anxious  followers  of  literary  fashions,  the  book  still  lives 
and  works      Publishers  do  not  distribute  their  wares  out  of 
pure  love  of  humanity,  nor  do  the  thousands  of  annual  pur- 
chasers put  their  copies  of  Heroes  away  unread. 

'  Emik  Montegut,  Revue  des  Deux  MonJes,  Tom.  ii,  p.  314,  1849. 
-W.  G.  follingwood,    The  Life  and  Work  0/  John  Ruskin,  I,  94 
Ix)nd.,  1893. 


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LECTURES  ox  HEROES 


"The  field  is  the  world."  Hume  cast  a  chance  word 
carelessly  into  the  great  seed-field.  \\\  the  fullness  of  timr 
it  found  lodgment  in  the  brain  of  a  hiolher  Scot,  and  bore 
fruit  in  a  new  thought  about  history,  a  new  impulse  to 
earnest  life.  The  new  thought  was  given  by  word  of  mouth 
to  a  ha.iuful  if  people  iii  ..  Luiuion  room.  It  was  "^pre  m1 
abroad  the  next  year  and  the  next  in  the  form  ot  ;i  printed 
book.  From  Engl.md  it  crossed  the  sea  to  New  Kngland. 
It  helped  to  shape  tho  lives  (i  ai  least  three  great  men 
who  had  power  to  teach  their  U  Hows.  And  year  by  year, 
the  re.iders  spread  abroad  in  evei  cxpandmg  circles,  Sucii 
is  the  history  of  Heroes. 

"  It  is  a  goustrous  determined  speaking  out  of  the  truth 
about  ;^' veral  things,"  was  the  final  judgment  of  (  arlyle  on 
the  work  of  his  hand.  True  wc  rds  spoken  with  determination 
do  not  lose  themselves  in  the  air.  Carlyle  appeals  to  the 
young  and  to  the  young  in  iieart.  His  trumpet  call  is  whai 
the  unspoiled  nature  eagerly  responds  to  ;  for  whoever  else 
bids  crouch,  he  bids  aspire. 


ON 


HHROHS.    HERO-WORSHIP. 


ANO 


THE   HEROIC    IN    HISTORY 


LECTURE  I 

niK    HKR«>    AS    UIVINITY.      ODIN.      PAGANISM:    SCANDINAVIAN 

MYTHOLOGY 

[Tuesday,  5th  May  1840.] » 

VVk  have  undertaken  to  discourse  here  for  a  little  on 
(Jrcat  Men,  their  manner  of  appearance  in  our  world's  busi- 
ness, how  they  have  shaped  themselves  in  the  world's 
history,  what  ideas  men  formed  of  them,  what  work  they 
(lid ;  —  on  Heroes,  namely,  and  on  their  reception  and 
performance ;  what  I  call  Hero-worship  and  the  Heroic  in 
human  affairs.  Too  evidently  this  is  a  large  topic  ;  deserv- 
ng  quite  other  treatment  than  we  can  expect  to  give  it  at 
present.  A  large  topic;  indeed,  an  illimitable  one;  wide 
IS  Universal  History  itself.  For,  as  I  take  it.  Universal  10 
History,  the  history  of  what  man  has  accomplished  in  this 
world,  is  at  bottom  the  History  of  the  Great  Men  who 
have  worked  here.  They  were  the  leaders  of  men,  these 
fjreat  ones ;  the  modellers,  patterns,  and  in  a  wide  sense 
creators,  of  whatsoever  the  general  mass  of  men  contrived 
'  W  »'  }{>  Date  set  abme  title. 


MICROCOfY   RESOIUTION   TEST  CHART 

(ANSI  and  ISO  TEST  CHART  No.  2) 


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Z  LECTURES  OAT  HEROES 

to  do  or  to  attain;  all  things  that  we  see  standing  accom. 
/-^hshed  in  the  world  are  properly  the  outer  material  result 
f  the  practical  realisation  and  embodiment,  of  Thoughts  that 
dwelt  in  the  Great  Men  sent  into  the  world:  the  soul  of 
the  whole  world's  history,  it  may  justly  be  considered,  were 
Jhe  history  of  these.     Too  clearly  it  is  a  topic  we  shall  do 
no  justice  to  in  this  place ! 

One  comfort  is,  that  Great  Men,  taken  up  in  any  way,  are 
profitable  company.     We  cannot  look,  however  imperfectly 
10  upon  a  great  man,  without  gaining  something  by  him.     He 
IS  the  living  liglU-fountain,  which  it  is  good  and  pleasant 
to  be  near.     The  light  which  enlightens,  which  has  enlight- 
ened the  darkness  of  the  world;  and  this  not  as  a  kindled 
lamp  only,  but  rather  as  a  natural  luminary  shining  by  the 
gift  of  Heaven  ;  a  flowing  light-fountain,  as  I  say,  of  native 
ongmal  insight,  of  manhood  and   heroic  nobleness  •- in 
-whose  radiance  all  souls  feel  that  it  is  well  with  them'    On 
any  terms  whatsoever,  you  will  -  .t  grudge  to  wander  in  such 
neighbourhood  for  a  while.     T  .ese  Six  classes  of  Heroes 
20  chosen  out  of  widely-distant'  countries  and  epochs,  and 
in  mere  external  figure  differing  altogether,  ought,  if  we 
00k  faithfully  at  them,  to  illustrate  several  things  for  us 
Could  we  see  then  well,  we  should  get  some  glimpses  into 
he  very  marrow  of  the  world's  history.     How  happy,  could 
I  but,  in  any  measure,  in  such  times  as  these,  make  manifest 
to  you  the  meanings  of  Heroism;  the  divine  relation  (for 
I  may  well  call  it  such)  which  in  all  times  unites  a  Great 
Man  to  other  men;  and  thus,  as  it  were,  not  exhaust  my 
subject,  but  so  much  as  break  ground  on  it !     At  all  events 
30  I  must  make  the  attempt.  ' 

It  is  well  said,  in  every  sense,  that  a  man's  religi.       s 
the  chief  fact  with  regard  to  him.     A  man's,  or  a  natic       f 
men's.     By  religion  I  do  not  mean  here  the  church-creed 
Ul'tPIP  widely  distant 


THE  riERO  AS  /Ur/X/TV 


which  he  professes,  the  articles  of  faith  whicli  he  will  sign 
and,  in  words  or  otherwise,  assert;  not  this  wholly,  in  many 
cases  not  this  at  all.     We  see  men  of  all  kinds  of  professed 
creeds  attain  to  almost  all  degrees  of  worth  or  worthlessness 
under  each  or  any  of  them.     This  is  not  what  I  call  religion, 
this  profession  and  assertion ;  which  is  often  only  a  profes- 
sion and  assertion  from  the  outworks  of  the  man,  from  the 
mere  argumentative  region  of  him,  if  even  so  deep  as  that. 
But  the  thing  a  man  does  practically  believe  (and  this  is 
often  enough  without  asserting  it  even  to  himself,  much  less  ic 
to  others) ;  the  thing  a  man  does  practically  lay  to  heart, 
and  know  for  certain,  concerning  his  vital  relations  to  this 
mysterious  Universe,  and  his  duty  and  destiny  tiiere,  that 
is  in  all  cases  the  primary  thing  for  him,  and  creatively 
determines  all  the  rest.     That  is  his  /v7/i,w//,-  or,  it  may 
be,  his  mere  scepticism  and  no-irligioii :  the  manner  it  is  in 
which  he  feels  himself  to  be  spiritually  related  to  the  Unseen 
World  or  No- World ;  and  I  say,  if  you  tell  me  what  that  is, 
you  tell  me  to  a  very  great  extent  what  the  man  is,  what  the 
kind  of  things  he  will  do  is.     Of  a  man  or  of  a  nation  we  20. 
inquire,   therefore,  first   of    all.   What   religion   they  had? 
Was  it  Heath'jnism,  — plurality  of  gods,  mere  sensuous  rep- 
resentation of  this  Mystery  of  Life,  and  for  chief  recognised 
element    therein    Physical    Force.'     Was  it    Christianism ; 
faith  in  an   Invisible,  not    as  real   only,  but  as  the  only 
reality ;  Time,  through  every  meanest  moment  of  it,  resting 
on  Eternity ;  Pagan  empire  of  Force  displaced  by  a  nobler 
supremacy,  that  of  Holiness  ?     Was  it  Scepticism,  uncer- 
tainty and  inquiry  whether  there  was  an  I'nseen  World, 
any  Mystery  of  Life  except  a  mad  one ;   -  doubt  as  to  all  3c 
this,  or  perhaps  unbelief  and  flat  denia'I  ?     Answering  of 
this  question  is  giving  us  the  soul  of  the  history  of  the 
man  or   nation.      The  thoughts  they  had  were  tht'  parents 
of  the  actions  they  did  ;  their  feelings  were  parents  of  their 


'f'M 


rr 


LECTURES  OA'  HEROES 


thoughts:  it  was  the  unseen  and  spiritual'  in  them  that 
determined  the  outward  and  actual ;  —  their  religion,  as  I 
say,  was  the  great  fact  about  them.  In  these  Discourses, 
limited  as  we  are,  it  will  be  good  to  direct  our  survey 
chiefly  to  that  religious  phasis  of  the  matter.  That  once 
known  well,  all  is  known.  We  have  chosen  as  the  first 
Hero  in  our  series,  Odin  the  central  figure  of  Scandinavian 
Paganism ;  an  emblem  to  us  of  a  most  extensive  province 
of  things.  Let  us  look  for  a  little  at  the  Hero  as  Divinity, 
10  the  oldest  primary  form  of  Heroism. 

Surely  it  seems  a  very  strange-looking  thing  this  Pagan- 
ism ;  almost  inconceivable  to  us  in  these  days.    A  bewilder- 
ing, inextricable  jungle  of  delusions,  confusion,  falsehoods 
and  absurdities,  covering   the  whole  field   of   Life^*!      A 
thing  that   fills  us  with   astonishment,  almost,  if  it  were 
possible,  with  incredulity,  —  for   truly  it    is  not   easy   to 
understand  that  sane  men  could  ever  calmly,  with  their 
eyes  open,  believe  and  live  by  such  a  set  of  doctrines. 
That   men  should  have  worshipped  their  pr      .ellow-man 
20  as  a  God,  and  not  him  only,  but  stocks  and  stones,  and  all 
manner  of  animate  and  inanimate  objects  ;  and  fashioned 
for  themselves  such  a  distracted  chaos  of  hallucinations  by 
way  of  Theory  of   the  Universe:   all  this  looks  like  an 
incredible  fable.     Nevertheless  it  is  a  clear  fact  that  they 
did  it.     Such  hideous  inextricable  jungle  of  misworships, 
misbeliefs,  men,  made  as  we  are,  did  actually  hold  by,  and 
live  at  home  in.     This  is  strange.     Yes,  we  may  pause  in 
sorrow  and  silence  over  the  depths  of  darkness  that  are  in 
man ;  if  we  rejoice  in  the  heights  of  purer  vision  he  has 
30  attained   to.     Such   things  were  and   are  in  man ;    in  all 
men  ;  in  us  too. 

Some  speculators  have  a  short  way  of  accounting  for  the 
Pagan    religion:    mere  quackery,  priestcraft,  and  dupery, 


^  H'  H'  unseen  spiritual 


2  H'  IP  life  there. 


THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY  S 

say  they;  no  sane  man  ever  did  believe  it— merely  con- 
trived to  persuade  other  men,  not  worthy  of  the  name  of 
sane,  to  believe  it !     It  will  be  often  our  duty  to  protest 
against  this  sort  of  hypothesis  about  men's  doings  and  his- 
tory ;  and  I  here,  on  the  very  threshold,  protest  against  it 
in  reference  to  Pay-nism,  and  to  all  other  isms  by  which 
man  has  ever  for  a  length  of  time  striven  to  walk  in  this 
world.     They  have  all  had  a  truth  in  them,  or  men  would 
not  have  taken  them  up.    Quackery  and  dupery  do  abound  ; 
,    in   religions,  above   all    in   the    more   advanced   decaying  la 
stages   of   religions,   they   have   fearfully   abounded:    but 
quackery   was   never   the    originating    influence    in    such 
things ;  it  was  not  the  health  and  life  of  such  thin-s,  but 
their  disease,  the  sure  precursor  of  their  being  about  to 
die  !     Let  us  never  forget  this.     It  seems  to  me  a  most 
mournful  hypothesis,  that  of  quackery  giving  birth  to  any 
faith  even  in  savage  men.    Quackery  gives  birih  to  nothing ; 
gives  death  to  all  things.^     We  shall  not  see  into  the  true 
heart  of  anything,  if  we  look  merely  at  the  quackeries  of  it ; 
if  we  do  not  reject  the  quackeries  altogether ;  a-    mere  dis-  20 
eases,  corruptions,  with  which  our  and  all  men  s  sole  duty 
is   to  have    done  with  them,   to  sweep  them  out  of  our 
thoughts  as  out  of  our  practice.     Man  everywhere  is  the 
born  enemy  of  lies.     I  find  ('.rand  Lamaism  itself  to  have 
a   kind  of  truth   in   it.      Read   the  candid,  clear-sighted, 
rather  sceptical  Mr.  Turner's  -  Account  of  his  Embassy  to  * 
that  country,  and  see.     They  have  their  belief,  these  poor 
Thibet    people,  that    Providence    sends    down    always  an 
Incarnation  of  Himself  into  every  generation.     At  bottom 
jme  belief  in  a  kind  of  Pope!     At  bottom  still  better,  30 
belief  that  there  is  a  Greatest  Man;  that  //r  is  discoverable ; 
that,  once  discovered,  we  ought  to  treat  him  with  an  obedi- 
ence which  knows  no  bounds  !     This  is  the  truth  of  Grand 


»  H'  H»  all. 


II'  Hamilton's  Travels  into 


O  LRCTURES   OX  IIKNOF.S 

I-amaisin  ;  the  'discoverability '  is  the  only  error  here.  The 
Thibet  priests  have  methods  .A  their  own  of  discovering 
what  Man  is  (ircatest,  fit  to  be  supreme  ever  them.     Bad 

methods  :  but  are  they  so  much  worse  than  our  methods , 

of  understandin<r  hiir:  to  be  always  the  eldest-born  of 
a    certain    gen-ilogy?      Alas,    it    is    a    difficult    thing   to 

find   good    methods  for! We   shall    begin   to  have  a 

chance  of  understanding  Paganism,  when  we  first  admit 
that  to  its  followers  it  was,  at  om.  time,  earnestly  true. 
lo  Let  us  consider  it  very  certain  that  men  did  believe  in 
Paganism  ;  men  with  open  eyes,  sound  senses,  men  made 
altogether  like  ourselves;  that  we,  had  we  boen  there, 
should  have  believed  in  it.  Ask  now.  What  Paganism  could 
have  been  .-' 

Another  theory,  somewhat  more  respectable,  attributes 
such  things  to  Allegory.  It  was  a  play  of  poetic  minds, 
say  these  theorists  ;  a  shadowing-forth,'  in  allegorical  fable, 
in  personificafon  and  visual  form,  of  what  such  poetic 
minds  had  known  and  felt  of  this  Universe.     Which  agrees, 

20  add  they,  with  a  primary  law  of  human  nature,  still  every- 
where observably  at  work,  though  in  less  important  things, 
'I'hat  what  a  man  feels  intensely,  he  struggles  to  speak-out'' 
of  him,  to  see  represented  before  him  in  visual  shape,  and 
as  if  with  a  kind  of  life  and  historical  reality  in  it.  Now 
doubtless  there  is  such  a  law,  and  it  is  one  of  the  deepest 
in  human  nature  ;  neither  need  we  doubt  that  it  did  operate 
fundamentally  in  this  business.  The  hypothesis  which 
ascribes  Paganism  wholly  or  mostly  to  this  agency,  I  call 
a  little  more  respectable  ;  but  I  cannot  yet  call  it  the  true 

30  hypothesis.     Think,  would  7vc  believe,  and  take  with  us  as 

our  life-guidance,  an  allegory,  a  poetic  sport .?     Not  sport 

but  earnest  is  what  we  should  require.     It  is  a  most  earnest 

thing  to  be  alive  in  this  world ;  to  die  is  not  sport  for  a 

1  IP  IF  H^  shadowing  forth  2  II«  H»  H^  speak  out 


THE  HERO  AS  D/l'/X/TY 


man.     Man's  life  never  was  a  sport  to  him  ;  it  was  a  stern 
reality,  altogether  a  serious  matter  to  be  alive' ! 

I  find,  therefc-?,  that  thoi-gh  these  Allegory  theorists" are 
on  the  way  towards  truth  in  this  matter,  they  have  not 
reached  it  either.  Pagan  Religion  is  indeed  an  Allegory, 
a  Symbol  of  what  men  felt  and  knew  about  the  Universe ; 
and  all  Religions  are  symbols'  of  that,  altering  always  as 
that  alters :  but  it  seems  to  me  a  radical  perversion,  and 
even  /wversion,  of  the  business,  to  put  that  forward  as  the 
origin  and  moving  cause,  when  it  was  rather  the  result  and  lo 
termination.  To  get  beautiful  allegories,  a  perfect  poetic 
symbol,  was  not  the  want  of  men ;  but  to  know  what  they 
were  to  believe  about  this  Universe,  what  course  they  were 
to  steer  in  it ;  what,  in  this  mysterious  Life  of  theirs,  they 
had  to  hope  and  to  fear,  to  do  and  to  forbear  doing.  The 
Pilgrim's  Progress  is  an  Allegory,  and  a  beautiful,  just  and 
serious  one :  but  consider  whether  Bunyan's  Allegory  could 
have  preceded  the  Faith  it  symbolisesM  The  Faith  had  to 
be  already  there,  standing  believed  by  everybody  ;  —  of 
which  the  Allegory  could  then  become  a  shadow ;  and,  with  20 
all  its  seriousness,  we  may  say  a  sportful  shadow,  a  mere 
play  of  the  Fancy,  in  comparison  with  that  awful  Fact  and 
scientific  certainty  which  it  poetically  strives  to  emblem. 
The  Allegory  is  the  product  of  the  certainty,  not  the 
producer  of  it;  not  in  Bunyan's  nor  in  any  other  case. 
For  Paganism,  therefore,  we  have  still  to  inquire,  Whence 
came  that  scientific  certainty,  the  parent  of  such  a  bewil- 
dered heap  of  allegories,  errors  and  confusions  ?  How  was 
it,  what  was  it .'' 

Surely  it  were  a  foolish  attempt  to  pretend  'explaining,'  30 
in  this  place,  or  in  any  place,  such  a  phenomenon  as  that 
far-distant  distracted  cloudy  imbroglio      Paganism, — more 


»  H«  H*  H^  no  paragraph. 
2  H'  H»  Allegory-theorists 


■; 


!r  .1 


I  \% 


MC  Symbols 

*  H'  H»  H^  symbolizes 


!(. 


•  LECTURES  OAT  HEROES 

like  a  cloudfield  than  a  distant  continent  of  firm  land>  and 
facts !    It  ,s  no  longer  a  reality,  yet  it  was  one.    We  ou-ht 
to  understand   that   this  seeming  cloudrteld  was   once  a 
reality;  that  not  poetic  allegory,  least  of  all  that  dupery 
and  deception  was  the  origin  of  it.     Men,  I  say,  never  did 
believe  idle  songs,  never  risked  their  soul's  life  on  allegories- 
men  in  all  times,  especially  in  early  earnest  times,  have  had 
an  instmct  for  detecting  quacks,  for  detesting  quacks      Let 
us  try  If,  leaving  out   both   the  quack   theory^  and   the 
.o  allegory  one.  and  listening  with  affectionate  attention  to 
that  far-off  confused  rumour  of  the  Pagan  ages,  we  cannot 
ascertain  so  much  as  this  at  least.  That  there  was  a  kind  of 
fact  at  the  heart  of  them ;   that  they  too  were  not  men- 
dacious and   distracted,  but   in  their  own  poor  way  true 
and  sane  I 


i-iS 


You  remember  that  fancy  of  Plato's,"  of  a  man  who  had 
grown  to  maturity  in  some  dark  distance,  and  was  ^  brought 
on  a  sudden  into  the  upper  air  to  see  the  sun  rise.     What 
wov  d  his  wonder  be,^  his  rapt  astonishment  at  the  si-ht  we 
^o  daily  witness  with  indifference !     With  the  free  open  sense 
of  '-^  child    yet  with  the  ripe  faculty  of  a  man,  his  whole 
heart  would  be  kindled  by  that  sight,  he  would  discern  it 
well  to  be  Godlike,  his  soul  would  fall  down  in  worship 
before  it.     Now,  just  such  a  childlike  greatness  was  in  the 
primitive  nations.     The  first  Pagan  Thinker  among  rude 
men   the  first  man  that  began  to  think,  was  precisely  this" 
child-man  of  Plato's/     Simple,  open  as  a  child,  yet  with 
the  depth  and  strength  of  a  man.     Nature  had  as  yet  no 
name  to  him  ;   he  had  not  yet  united  under  a  name  the 


»  H'  W  firm-land 
«  H'  II'  quack-theory 

•  H«  H»  H3  Aristotle's  n  \v  IP  IP  the 

'  H«  H»  H'  Aristotle. 


*H' IP  IP  were 

•'  IP  IP  IP  says  the  Philosopher, 


Tl/F.    HERO  AS  DlllX/jy 


infinite  variety  of  si-lits,  sounds,  .■,!iapes  and  motions,  which 
we  now  collectively  name  Tniverse,  Nature,  or  the  like, — 
and  so  with  a  name  dismiss  it  from  us.      To  the  wild  deep- 
hearted  man  all  was  yet  new,  not  veiled '  under  names  or 
formulas;  it  stood  naked,  (lashinj;.in  -  on  him  there,  beauti- 
ful, awful,  unspeakable.     Nature  was  to  this  man,  what  to 
the  rhinker  and  Prophet  it  forever  is,  /yvA/natural.     This 
green  flowery  rock-built  earth,  the  trees,  the  mountains, 
rivers,  many-sounding  seas;  —  that  great  deep  sea  of  azure 
that  swims  overhead;  the  winds  sweeping  through  it;  the  lo 
black  cloud  fashioning  itself  together,  now  pouring  out  fire, 
now  hail  and  rain  ;  what  is  it  ?    Ay,  what  .>    At  bottom  we 
do  not  yet  know  ;  we  can  never  know  at  all.      It  is  not  by 
our  superior  insight  that  we  escape  the  difficulty ;  it  is  by 
our  superior  levity,  our  inattention,  our  jkhviI  of  insight.     It 
is  by  not  thinking  that  we  cease  to  wonder  at  it.     Hardened 
roui.d  us,  encasing  wholly  every  notion  we  form,  is  a  wrap-, 
page  of  traditions,  hearsays,  mere  7oords.    We  call  that  tire  of ' 
the  black  thunder-cloud  'electricity,'  and  lecture  learnedly 
about  it,  and  grind  the  like  of  it  out  of  glass  and  silk :  but  20 
■u>:.at  is  it  ?     What  made  it  ?     Whence  comes  it  ?    Whither 
goes  it  ?     Science  has  done  much  for  us  ;  but  it  is  a  poor 
that  would    hide  from  us  the   great    deep  sacred 
-ue  of  Nescience,  whither  we  can  never  penetrate, 
.1  all  science  swims  as  a  mere  superricial  film.     This 
..^.iJ,  after  all  our  science  and  sciences,  is  still  a  miracle; 
wonderful,  inscrutable,  magical  and  more,  to  whosoever  will 
think  of  it. 

That  great  mystery  of  TrMK,  were  there  no  other;  the 
illimitable,  silent,  never-resting  thing  called  Time,  rolling,  3c 
rushing  on,  swift,  silent,  like  an  all-embracing  ocean-tide, 
on  which  we  and  all  the  Universe  swim  like  exhalations,' 
like  apparitions  which  arc,  and  then  are  not:  this  is  forever 
1  II"  Ii»  unveiled  -^  H'  H»  H^  flasliing  in 


►I/'-'! 


10 


lAC'/'fA/uS-  i>X  /MA'OA.V 


'I 


very  literally  a  miracle  ;  a  thing  to  strike  us  dumb,  —  for  we 
have  no  word  to  speak  about  it.  I'his  I'niverse,  ah  me  '  — 
what  could  the  wild  man  know  of  it ;  what  can  we  yet 
know  ?  That  it  is  a  lorce,  and  thousandfold  Complexity  of 
Forces  ;  a  Force  which  is  w/  74V.  That  is  all ;  it  .<  not  we, 
it  is  altogether  dilferent  from  us.  Force,  Force,  every- 
where Force  ;  we  ourselves  a  mysterious  Force  in  the  centre 
of  that.  'There  is  not  a  leaf  rotting  on  the  highway  but 
has  Force  in  it :  how  else  could  it  rot  .> '     Nay  surely,  to 

:o  the  Atheistic  I'hinker,  if  such  a  one  were  possible,  it  must 
be  a  miracle  too,  this  huge  illimitable  \'liirlwind  of  Force, 
which  envelops"  us  here  ;  never-resting  whirlwind,  high  as 
Immensity,  old  as  Eternity.  .  What  is  it  ?  God's  creation, 
the  religious  people  answer;  it  is  the  Almighty  God's  I 
Atheistic  scieiue  babbles  poorly  of  it,  with  scientific  no- 
menclatures, experiments  and  what-not,'  as  if  it  were  a  poor 
dead  thing,  to  be  bottled-up*  in  Leyden  jars  and  sold  over 
counters :  but  the  natural  sense  of  man,  in  all  times,  if  he 
will  honestly  apply  his  sense,  proclaims  it  to  be  a  living 

2o  thing,  —ah,  an  unspeakable,  godlike  thing;  towards  which 
the  best  attitude  for  us,  after  never  so  much  science,  is 
awe,  devout  prostration  and  humility  of  soul  ;  worship  if 
not  in  words,  then  in  silence. 

But  now  I  remark  farther :  Wh.at  in  such  a  time  as  ours 
it  requires  a  Prophet  or  Poet  to  teach  us,  namely,  the 
stripping-otT*  of  those  poor  undevout  wrappages,  nomen- 
clatures and  scientific  hearsays,  -this,  the  ancient  earnest 
soul,  as  yet  unencumbered  with  these  things,  did  for  itselt. 
The  world,  which    is  now  divine  only  to  the  gifted,  was 

30  then  divine  to  whosoever  would  turn  his  eye  upon  it.  He 
stood  bare  before   it  face  to  face.     'All   was  (iodlike  or 

1  II'  II'H^me!-  3  111  H»H3  what  not 

2  IV  U-  If  envelopes  -t  II'  IP  H'  l„,tileil  up 

s  11 «  IP  II' stripping  off 


HIE  III.  NO  AS  v/r/x/ry 


11 


God:'  —Jean  Paul  ssill  finds  it  so;  the  jjiant  Jean  Paul, 
who  has  power  to  escape  out  of  hearsays :  but  there  then  * 
were  no  hearsays,  •  anopus  shininjj-dosvn  -'  over  the  desert, 
with  its  blue  diamond  brij^htness  (that  wild  blue  spirit-like 
brightness,  far  brighter  than  we  ever  witness  here),  would 
pierce  into  the  hear  o*  the  wild  Fshmaelitish  mai»,  whom 
it  was  guiding  through  the  solitary  waste  there.  To  his  wild 
heart,  with  all  feelings  in  it,  with  no  s/'cirh  for  any  feeling,  it 
might  seem  a  little  eye,  that  (anopus,  glancing-out"  on  him 
from  the  great  deep  I'-tcrnity;  revealing  the  inner  Splendour  lo 
to  him.  Cannot  we  understand  how  these  men  UMrshippnl 
Canopus ;  became  what  we  call  Sabeans,  worshipping  the 
stars  ?  Such  is  to  me  the  secret  of  all  forms  of  I'aganism. 
Worship  is  transcendent  wonder  ;  wonder  for  which  there  is 
now  no  limit  or  measure  ;  that  is  worship.  To  these  primeval 
men,  all  things  and  everything  they  saw  exist  beside  them 
were  an  emblem  of  the  (Jodlike,  of  some  (iod. 

And  look  what  perennial  fibre  of  truth  was  in  that.  To 
us  also,  through  every  star,  through  every  blade  of  gra.ss,  is 
not  a  (rod  made  visible,  if  we  will  open  our  minds  and  ao 
eyes  ?  We  do  not  worship  in  that  way  now  :  but  is  it  not 
reckoned  still  a  merit,  proof  of  what  we  call  a  'poetic 
nature,'  th  we  recognise  how  every  object  has  a  divine 
beauty  iu  .;  how  every  object  still  verily  is  *a  window 
through  which  we  may  look  into  Infmitude  Mtself '  ?  He 
that  can  discern  the  loveliness  of  things,  we  call  him  Poet, 
Painter,  Man  of  (Jenius,  gifted,  lovable."'  These  poor 
Sabeans  did  even  what  he  does, — in  their  own  'ashion. 
That  they  did  it,  in  what  fashion  soever,  was  a  merit ;  bet- 
ter than  what  the  entirely  stupid  man  did,  what  the  horse  30 
and  camel  did,    -  namely,  nothing! 


'S 


'  If  IP  III  ihen  there  *  II'  IP  W  glancinsr  down 

MI'  iP  IP  shining  d    .vn  ^  IPintinitude 

*  h'  IP  lPh)vcal>le. 


12 


Lf-U'TCh'J'lS   OX  f/KfiOhS 


Hut  now  if  all  things  whatsoever  th.it  we  look  upon  arc 
emblems  to  us  of  the  Highest  God,  I  add  that  inoreso  than 
•ny  of  them  is  man  such  an  emblem.  Vou  have  heard  o' 
St.  Chrysostom's  celebrated  sayinj;  in  reference  to  the  She- 
kinah,  or  .\rk  of  festimony,  visible  Revelation  of  God, 
among  the  Hebrews  ;  "The  true  Shekinah  is  .Man!  "  Yes, 
it  is  even  so  :  this  is  no  vain  phrase  ;  it  is  veritably  .so.  The 
essence  of  our  being,  the  mystery  in  us  that  calls  itiielf  "  I," 
—  ah,  what  words  have  we  for  such  things  ?    -  is  a  breath 

lo  of  Heaven;  the  Highest  Ik-ing  rc/eals  himself  in  man. 
This  body,  these  faculties  this  life  of  ours,  is  it  not  all  as 
a  vesture  for  that  Unnamed  }  •Ihere  is  but  one  Temple 
in  the  Universe,'  says  the  devout  Novalis,  'and  that  is  the 
Body  of  Man.  Nothing  is  holier  than  that  high  form. 
Itending  before  men  is  a  reverence  done  to  this  Revelation 
in  the  Flesh.  We  touch  Heaven  when  we  hay  our  hand  on 
a  human  body!'  This  sounds  much  like  a  mere  flourish 
of  rhetoric ;  but  it  is  not  so.  If  well  meditated,  it  will  turn 
out  to  be  a  scientific  fact ;  the  expression,  in  such  words 

20  as  can  be  had,  of  the  actual  truth  of  the  thing.  We  are 
the  miracle  of  miracles,  —the  great  inscrutable  mystery  of 
Clod.  We  cannot  understand  it,  we  know  not  how  to  speak 
of  it ;  but  we  may  feel  and  know,  if  we  like,  that  it  is 
verily  so. 

Well ;  these  truths  were  once  more  readily  felt  than  now. 
The  young  generations  of  the  world,  who  h.ad  in  them  the 
freshness  of  young  children,  and  yet  the  depth  of  earnest 
men,  who  did  not  think  that  they  had  finished-off*  all 
things  in  Heaven  nnd  Karth  by  merely  giving  them  scien- 
30  tific  names,  but  ha.  gaze  direct  at  them  there,  with  awe 
and  wonder :  they  felt  better  what  of  divinity  is  in  man 
and  Nature ;  — they,  without  being  mad,  could  rvors/iip 
Nature,  and  man  more  than  anything  else  in  Nature.  Wor- 
1  M'  W  H»  finished  off 


/•///•;  iihKo   IS  oniMiY 


13 


10 


ship,  that  is,  .is  F  said  jibove,  admire  witluiiit  limit  :  liiis, 
itj  tlie  full  use  «>f  their  f.iciiltics,  \vi'  i  .ill  sincerity  of  heart, 
they  could  do.  I  consider  Jlcro-worship  to  be  the  yrand 
modifying  element  in  that  ancient  system  of  thoujrht. 
What  I  called  the  |)erplexed  jungle  of  I'.ayanism  spranj;,  we 
may  say,  out  of  niany  roots:  every  admiration,  adoration 
of  a  star  or  nitural  object,  w.is  a  root  or  fibre  of  a  root ; 
l)ut  Hero-worship  is  the  deepest  root  of  all ;  the  tai>root, 
from  which  in  a  great  dej;reo  all  the  rest  were  nourished 
and  grown. 

And  now  if  worship  even  of  a  star  had  some  meaning 
in  it,  how  much  more  might  that  of  a  Hero  !  Worship  of 
a  Hero  is  transcerd..  n  admiration  of  a  Great  Man.  I  say 
great  men  are  still  admirable ;  I  say  there  is,  at  bottom, 
nothing  else  admirable!  No  nobler  feeling  than  this  of 
admiration  for  one  higher  than  himself  dwells  m  the  breast 
of  man.  It  is  to  this  hour,  and  at  all  hours,  the  vivifying 
inHuence  in  man's  life.  Religion  I  find  stand  upon  it;  not 
Paganism  only,  but  far  higher  and  truer  religions,  —  all 
religion  hitherto  known.  Hero-worship,  heartfelt  prostrate  20 
admiration,  submission,  burning,  boundless,  for  a  noblest 
godlike  I'orm  of  Alan,  -  is  not  thai  the  germ  o^  instianity 
itself  .'  The  greatest  of  all  Heroes  is  ( >ne  —  om  we  do 
not  name  here!  Let  sacred  silence  meditite  that  sacred 
matter;  you  will  find  it  the  ultimate  p«Mif«ction  of  a  princi- 
ple extant  throughout  man's  -vi.ole  histc  i  v  on  earth. 

Or  coming  into  lower,  less  /«//:^;peakab'c  provinces,  is  not 
all  Loyalty  akin  to  religious  l-aith  also?  Kaith  is  loyalty 
to  some  inspired  ("eacher,  some  spiritual  Hero.  .And  what 
therefore  is  loyalty  proper,  the  life-breath  of  all  society,  but 
x\\  efiluence  of  Hero-worship,  submissive  admiration  for  the 
truly  great  ?  .Society  is  founded  on  Hero-worship.  All 
dignities  of  rank,  ou  which  luuu.in  association  rests,  are 
what  we  may  call  a  //<7-<;archy  ((Government  of  Hero*s), — 


^o 


r  f 


If-  f 


jiii 


I* 


14 


LECTURES  OAT  HEROES 


or  a  Hierarchy,  for  it   is  « sacred  '  enough  withal !     The 
Duke  means  Dux,  Leader  ;  King  is  Kon-nins;,  A'an-ning,  Man 
that  A-noivs  or  cans.     Society  everywhere  is  some  represen- 
tation, not  ///supportably  inaccurate,  of  a  graduated  Worship 
of  Heroes  ;  —  reverence  and  obedience  done  to  men  really 
great   and  wise.      Not    ///supportably   inaccurate,   I    say! 
They  are  all   as  bank-notes,   these   social   dignitaries,  all 
representing  gold;  — and  several  of  them,  alas,  always  are 
/or^e(/  notes.     We  can  do  with  some  forged  false  notes; 
10  with  a  good  many  even  ;  but  not  with  all,  or  the  most  of 
them  forged  !     No :  there  have  to  come  revolutions  then  ; 
cries  of  Democracy,  Liberty  and  Equality,  and  I  know  not 
what :  —  the  notes  being  all  false,  and  no  gold  to  be  had  for 
them,  people  take  to  crying  in  their  despair  that  there  is  no 
gold,  that  there  never  was  any  !  —  'Gold,'  Hero-worship,  is 
nevertheless,  as  it  was  always  and  everywhere,  and  cannot 
cease  till  man  himself  ceases. 

I  am  well  aware  that  in  these  days  Hero-worship,  the 
thing  I  call  Hero-worship,  professes  to  have  gone  out,  and 
20  finally  ceased.  This,  for  reasons  which  it  will  be  worth 
while  some  time  to  inquire  into,  is  an  age  that  as  it  were 
denies  the  existence  of  great  men  ;  denies  the  desirableness 
of  great  men.  Show'  our  critics  a  great  man,  a  Luther  for 
example,  they  begin  to  what  they  call  'account  '  for  him; 
not  to  worship  him,  but  take  the  dimensions  of  him,  —and 
bring  him  out  to  be  a  little  kind  of  man!  He  was  the 
'creature  of  the  Time,'  they  say;  the  Time  called  him 
forth,  the  Time  did  everything,  he  nothing  — but  what  we 
the  little  critic  could  have  done  too  !  This  seems  to  me 
30  but  melancholy  work.  The  Time  call  forth  ?  Alas,  we 
have  known  Times  ca//  loudly  enough  for  their  great  man  ; 
but  not  find  him  when  they  called  !  He  was  not  there  \ 
Providence  had  not  sent  him  ;  the  Time,  m/////^r  jts  loudest,' 

^\V\V\V  Shew 


THE   HEKO   AS  Dili  MTV 


15 


had  to  go  down  to  confusion  and  wreck  because  he  would 
not  come  when  called.' 

For  if  we  will  think  of  it,  no  Time  need  have  gone  to 
ruin,  could  it  have  foiiiiJ  a  man  great  enough,  a  man  wise 
and  good  enough  :  wisdom  to  discern  truly  what  the  Time 
wanted,  valour  to  lead  it  on  the  right  road  thither ;  these 
are  the  salvation  of  any  Time.  But  I  liken  common  languid 
Times,  with  their  unbelief,  distress,  perplexity,  with  their  lan- 
guid doubting  characters  and  embarrassed  circumstances, 
impotently  crumbling-down-  into  ever  worse  distress  towards  ic 
final  ruin ;  —  all  this  I  liken  to  dry  dead  fuel,  waiting  for 
the  lightning  out  of  Heaven  that  shall  kindle  it.  The  great 
man,  with  his  free  force  direct  out  of  (Jod's  own  hand,  is  the 
lightning.  His  word  is  the  wise  healing  word  which  all 
can  believe  in.  All  blazes  round  him  now,  when  he  has 
once  struck  on  it,  into  tire  like  his  own.  The  dry  mould- 
ering sticks  are  thought  to  have  called  him  forth.  They 
did  want  him  greatly;  but  as  to  calling  him  forth  —  !  — 
Those  are  critics  of  small  vision,  I  think,  who  cry:  "See, 
is  it  not  the  sticks  that  made  the  (ire  ?  "  No  sadder  proof  20 
can  be  given  by  a  man  of  his  own  littleness  than  disbelief 
in  great  men.  There  is  no  sadder  symptom  of  a  genera- 
tion than  such  general  blindness  to  the  spiritual  lightning, 
with  faith  only  in  the  heap  of  barren  dead  fuel,  it  is  the 
last  consummation  of  unbelief.  In  all  epochs  of  the  world's 
history,  we  shall  find  the  (Ireat  Man  to  have  been  the  indis- 
pensable saviour  of  his  epoch  ;  the  lightning,  without 
which  the  fuel  never  would  have  burnt.  The  History  of 
the  World,  I  said  already,  was  the  Biography  of  Great 
Men. 

Such  small  critics  do  what  they  can  to  promote  unbelief 
and  universal  spiritual  paralysis :  but  happily  they  cannot 
always  completely  succeed.      In  all  times  it  is  possible  for 

'  11'  IP  IP  uo pantpaph.  -  II'  11^  IP  crumbling  down 


4 


3^-' 


16 


LECTU:;ES  ok  l/RRORS 


a  man  to  arise  great  enough  to  feel  that  they  and  their 
doctrines  are  ciiimeras  and  cohwelxs.     And  what  is  notable, 
in  no  time  whatever  can  they  entirely  eradicate  out  of  liv- 
ing men's  hearts  a  certain  altogether  peculiar  reverence  for 
Great  Men ;  genuine  admiration,  loyalty,  adoration,  how- 
ever dim  and  perverted  it  may  be.      Hero-worship  endures 
forever  while  man  endures.     IJoswell  venerates  his  Johnson, 
right  truly  even  in  the  Eighteenth  century.     The  unbeliev- 
ing French  believe  in  their  Voltaire  ;  and  burst-out '  round 
'o  him  into  very  curious  Hero-worship,  in  that  last  act  of  his 
life  when    they  'stifle   him  under  roses.'     It  has  always 
seemed  to  me  extremely  curious  this  of  Voltaire.     Truly, 
if  Christianity  be  the  highest   instance   of  Hero-worship' 
then  we  may  find  here  in  Voltaireism  -  one  of  the  lowest ! 
He  whose  life  was  that  of  a  kind  of  Antichrist,  does  again 
on  this  side  exhibit  a  curious  contrast.     No  people  ever 
were  so  little  prone  to  admire  at  all   as  those  French  of 
Voltaire.     Persiflage  was  the  character  of  th.ir  whole  mind  ; 
adoration  had  nowhere  a  place  in  it.     Yet  see !     The  old 
20  man  of  Ferney  comes  up  to  Paris  ;  an  old,  tottering,  infirm 
man  of  eighty-four  years.     They  feel  that  he  too  is  a  kind 
of  Hero;  that  he  has  spent  his  life  in  opposing  error  and 
injustice,  delivering  Calases,  unmasking  hypocrites  in  high 
places  ;  —  in  short  that  he  too,  though  in  a  strange  wa^y, 
has  fought  like  a  valiant  man.     They  feel  withal  that,  'if 
persiflage  be  the  great  thing,  there  never  was  such  a  persi- 
fletir.     He  is  the  realised  '•  ideal  of  every  one  of  them ;  the 
thing  they  are  all  wanting  to  be ;  of  all   Frenchmen  the 
most   French.     He  is  properly  their  god,  — such  god  as 
30  they  are  fit  for.      Accordingly  all  persons,  from  the  (^ueen 
Antoinette  to  the  Douanier  at  the  Porte  St.  Denis,  do'^they 
not  worship  him  ?     People  of  quality  disguise  themselves  as 

1  II'  IP  IP  hurst  out  ■^-  II'  11^-  Hi  Voltairism 

8  H'  IP  IP  realized 


THE  HERO  AS  DIVIXITY 


17 


tavern-waiters.  The  Maitre  do  I'oste,  with  a  broad  oath, 
orders  his  Postillion,*  "  Va  bon  train;  thou  art  driving  M. 
de  Voltaire."  At  Paris  his  carriage  is  'the  nucleus  of  a 
comet,  whose  train  fills  whole  streets.'  The  ladies  pluck 
a  hair  or  two  from  his  fur,  to  keep  it  as  a  sacred  relic. 
There  was  nothing  highest,  beautifulest,*  noblest  in  all 
France,  that  did  not  feel  this  man  to  be  higher,  beauti- 
fuler,'  nobler. 

Yes,  from  Norse  Odin  to  English  Samuel  Johnson,  from 
the  divine  Founder  of  Christianity  to  the  withered  I'ontiff  ic 
of  Kncyclopedism,  in  all  times  and  places,  the  Hero  has 
been  worshipped.     It  will  ever  be  so.     We  all  love  great 
men  ;  love,  venerate  and  bow  down  submissive  before  great 
men:    nay  can  we  honestly  bow  down  to  anything  else? 
Ah,  does  not  every  true  man  feel  that  he  is  himself  made 
higher  by  doing  reverence  to  what  is  really  above  him  ? 
No  nobler  or  more  blessed  feeling  dwells  in  man's  heart. 
And  to  me  it  is  very  cheering  to  consider  that  no  sceptical 
logic,  or  general  triviality,  insincerity  and  aridity  of  any 
Time  and  its  influences  can  destroy  this  noble  inborn  loy-  20 
alty  and  worship  that  is  in  man.     In  times  of  unbelief, 
which   soon   have  to  become  times  of  revolution,  much 
down-rushing,  sorrowful  decay  and  ruin  is  visible  to  every- 
body.    For  myself  in  these  days,  I  seem  to  see  in  this 
indestructibility  of  Hero-worship  the  everlasting  adamant 
t  lower  than  which  the  confused  wreck  of  revolutionary  things 
cannot  fall.     The  confused  wreck  of  things  crumbling  and 
even  crasning  and  tumbling  all  round  us  in  thes^  revolu- . 
tionary  ages,  will  get  down  so  far;  no  farther.     It  is  an! 
eternal  corner-stone,  from  which  they  can  begin  to  build  jc 
themselves  up  again.     That  man,  in  some  sense  or  other, ' 
worships  Heroes  ;  that  we  all  of  us  reverence  and  must  ever 

1  H«  H*  H'  Postilion :  "  H"  IP  IP  beautifullest 

a  11'  H=  IP  beautifulier 


L. 


18 


I.ECTUKI'IS  ON  HEROES 


reverence  fireat  Men  :  this  is,  to  me,  the  living  rock  amid 
all  rushings-down '  whatsoever ;  — the  one  fixed  point  in 
modern  revolutionary  history,  otherwise  as  if  bottomless 
and  shoreless. 


So  much  of  truth,  only  under  an  ancient  obsolete  vesture, 
but  the  spirit  of  it  still  true,  do  I  find  in  the  Paganism' 
of  old  nations.  Nature  is  still  divine,  the  revelation  of  the 
workings  of  God  ;  the  Hero  is  still  worshipable  :  this,  under 
poor  cramped  incipient  forms,  is  what  all  Pagan  religions 

lo  have  struggled,  as  they  could,  to  set  forth.  I  think  Scandi- 
navian Paganism,  to  us  here,  is  more  interesting  than  any 
other.  It  is,  for  one  thing,  the  latest ;  it  continued  in  these 
regions  of  Europe  till  the  eleventh  century:  eight-hundred  » 
years  ago  the  Norwegians  were  still  worshippers  of  Odin. 
It  is  interesting  also  as  the  creed  of  our  fathers ;  the  men 
whose  blood  still  runs  in  our  veins,  whom  doubtless  we  still 
resemble  in  so  many  ways.  Strange  :  they  did  believe  that, 
while  we  believe  so  differently.  Let  us  look  a  little  at  this 
poor  Norse  creed,  for  many  reasons.     We  have  tolerable 

20  means  to  do  it ;  for  there  is  another  point  of  interest  in 
these  Scandinavian  mythologies  :  that  they  have  been  pre- 
served so  well. 

In  that  strange  island  Iceland,  —  burst-up,^  the  geologists 
say,  by  fire  from  the  bottom  of  the  sea;  a  wild  land  of  bar- 
renness and  lava  ;  swallowed  many  months  of  every  year  in 
black  tempests,  yet  with  a  wild  gleaming  beauty  in  summer- 
time; towering  up  there,  stern  and  grim,  in  the  North 
Ocean;  with  its  snow  jokuls,*  roaring  geysers,  sulphur- 
pools*  and  horrid  volcanic  chasms,  like  the  waste  chaotic 
30  battle-field  of  Frost  and  Fire;— where  of  all   places  we 

»  H'  11=  IP  rushings  down  a  H'  H*  W  burst  up 

^  II'  IP  \V  eight  hundred  «  H'  H»  IP  snow-jokuls 

6  H'  IP  W  sulphur  pools 


THE   IfERO   AS  n/rfX/TV 


19 


10 


least  looked  for  Literature  or  written  memorials,  the 
record  of  these  things  was  written  down.  On  the  seaboard 
of  this  wild  land  is  a  rim  of  grassy  country  where  cattle 
can  subsist,  and  men  by  means  of  them  and  of  what  the 
sea  yields ;  and  it  seems  they  were  poetic  men  these,  men 
who  had  deep  thoughts  in  them,  and  uttered  musically 
their  thoughts.  Much  would  be  lost,  had  Iceland  not  been 
burst-up '  from  the  sea,  not  been  discovered  by  the  North- 
men !  The  old  Norse  Poets  were  many  of  them  natives  of 
Iceland. 

Sa;mund,  one  of  the  early  Christian  Priests  there,  who 
perhaps  had  a  lingering  fondness  for  Paganism,  collected 
certain  of  their  old  Pagan  songs,  just  about  becoming  obso- 
lete then,  —  Poems  or  Chants-  of  a  mythic,  prophetic, 
mostly  all  of  a  religious  character:  that  is  what  Norse 
critics  call  the  FJ<ier  or  Poetic  Edda.  Ed</,i,  a  word  of 
uncertain  etymology,  is  thought  to  signify  Ancestress. 
Snort-o  Sturleson,  an  Iceland  gentlemau,  an  extremely 
notable  personage,  educated  by  this  Sitmund's  grandson, 
took  in  hand  next,  near  a  century  afterwards,  to  put  20 
together,  among  several  other  books  he  wrote,  a  kind  of 
Prose  Synopsis  of  the  whole  Mythology ;  elucidated  by 
new  fragments  of  traditionary  verse.  A  work  constructed 
really  with  great  ingenuity,  native  talent,  what  one  might 
call  unconscious  art ;  altogether  a  perspicuous  clear  work, 
pleasant  reading  still :  this  is  the  FfW/^v/-  or  Prose  EMci. 
By  these  and  the  numerous  other  Sc^^as,  mostly  Icelandic, 
with  the  commentaries,  Icelandic  or  not,  which  go  ou  zeal- 
ously in  the  North  to  this  day,  it  is  possible  to  gain  some 
direct  insight  even  yet ;  and  see  that  old  Norse  system  of  3c 
Belief,  as  it  were,  face  to  face.  Let  us  forget  that  it  is 
erroneous  Religion  ;  let  us  look  at  it  as  old  Thought,  and 
try  if  we  cannot  sympathise  witii  it  somewhat. 

1  II'  11=  IP  burst  up  *  II'  IlMI^  Chaunts 


'.flj 


:■  ill  I 


i   ;    ;-: 


ao 


LECTURES  OK  HEROES 


The  primary  characteristic  of  this  old  Northland  Mythol- 
ogy I  find  to  be  Impersonation  of  the  visible  workings  of 
Nature.  Earnest  simple  recognition  of  the  workings  of  Phys- 
ical Nature,  as  a  thing  wholly  miraculous,  stupendous  nd 
divine.  What  we  now  lecture  of  as  Science,  they  wondered 
at,  and  fell  down  in  awe  before,  as  Religion.  The  dark 
hostile  Powers  of  Nature  they  figure  to  themselves  as 
'Jotuns,'  Giants,  huge  shaggy  beings  of  a  demonic  charac- 
ter.     Frost,    Fire,    Sea-tempest;    these   are   Jotuns.     The 

lo  friendly  Powers  again,  as  Summer-heat,  the  Sun,  are  Oods. 
The  empire  of  this  Universe  is  divided  between  these  two  ; 
they  dwell  apart,  in  perennial  internecine  feud.  The  Gods 
dwell  above  in  Asgard,  the  Garden  of  the  Asen,  or  Divin- 
ities ;  Jotunheim,  a  distant  dark  chaotic  land,  is  the  home  ^ 
of  the  Jotuns. 

Curious  all  this ;  and  not  idle  or  inane,  if  we  look  at  the 
foundation  of  it !  The  power  of  Fire,  or  Flame,  for  instance, 
which  we  designate  by  some  trivial  chemical  name,  thereby 
hiding  from  ourselves  the  essential  character  of  wonder 

20  that  dwells  in  it  as  in  all  things,  is  with  these  old  North- 
men, Loke,  a  most  swift  subtle  Demon,  of  the  brood  of  the 
Jotuns.  The  savages  of  the  Ladrones  Islands  too  (say 
some  Spanish  voyagers)  thought  Fire,  which  they  never 
had  seen  before,  was  a  devil  or  god,  that  bit  you  sharply 
when  you  touched  it,  and  that  lived  upon  dry  wood.  From 
us  too'  no  Chemistry,  if  it  had  not  Stupidity  to  help  it, 
would  hide  that  Flame  is  a  wonder.  What  is  Flame  .>  — 
Frost  the  old  Norse  Seer  discerns  to  be  a  monstrous  hoary" 
Jotun,  the  Giant  T/irym,  Hrym  ;  or  Rimr,  the  old  word  now 

30  nearly  obsolete  here,  but  still  used  in  Scotland  to  signify 

hoar-frost.     Ritne  was  not  then  as  now  a  dead  chemical 

thing,  but  a  living  Jotun  or  Devil ;  the  monstrous  Jotun 

Rime  drove  home  his  Horses  at  night,  sat  •  combing  their 

»  H'  H»  H*  Home        ^  H'  li*  W  too,         »  H'  H«  H^  Hoaiy 


i 


THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY 


21 


manes,'  —  which  Horses  were  Hail-Clouds,  or  fleet  Frost- 
Winds.  His  Cows  —  No,  not  his,  but  a  Itinsman's,  the 
Giant  Hymir's  Cows  are  Icchei};s:  this  Hymir  'looks  at  the 
rocks'  with  his  devil-eye,  and  they  ^Mit  in  the  glance  of  it. 

Thunder  was  not  then  mere  Electricity,  vitreous  or 
resinous ;  it  was  the  God  Donner  (Thunder)  or  Thor,  — 
God  also  of  beneficent  Summer-heat.  The  thunder  was 
his  wrath  ;  the  gathering  of  the  black  clouds  is  the  drawing- 
down  '  of  Thor's  angry  brows  ;  the  fire-bolt  bursting  out  of 
Heaven  is  the  all-rending  Hammer  flung  from  the  hand  of  lo 
Thor  :  he  urges  his  loud  chariot  over  the  mountain-tops,-  - 
that  is  the  peal ;  wrathful  he  '  blows  in  his  red  beard,'  — 
that  is  the  rustling  stormblast  before  the  thunder  begin. 
Balder  again,  the  White  God,  the  beautiful,  the  just  and 
benignant  (whom  the  early  Christian  Missionaries  found 
to  resemble  Christ),  is  the  Sun,  —  beautifulest "  of  visible 
things  ;  wondrous  too,  and  divine  still,  after  all  our  Astron- 
omies and  Almanacs  !  But  perhaps  the  notablest  god  we 
hear  tell-of '  is  one  of  whom  Grimm  the  German  Etymolo- 
gist finds  trace:  the  God  IViiiisc/i,  or  Wish.  The  God  20 
IVish ;  who  could  give  us  all  that  we  wished!  Is  not  this 
the  sincerest  and  yet  rudest  voice  of  the  spirit  of  man  ? 
The  rudest  ideal  that  man  ever  formed ;  which  still  shows  * 
itself  in  the  latest  forms  of  our  spiritual  culture.  Higher 
considerations  have  to  teach  us  that  the  (Jod  Wish  is  not 
the  true  God. 

Of  the  other  Gods  or  Jotuns  I  will  mention  only  for  ety- 
mology's sake,  that  Sea-tempest  is  the  Jotun  Aegir,  a  very 
dangerous  Jotun ;  —  and  now  to  this  day,  on  our  river 
Trent,  as  I  learn,  the  Nottingham  bargemen,  when  the  3c 
River  is  in  a  certain  flooded  state  (a  kind  of  backwater,  or 
eddying  swirl  it  has,  very  dangerous  to  them),  call  it  Eager; 


1  H'  IV  IP  drawing  down 

2  H«  H»  H*  beautifuUest 


s  H'  H»  IP  tell  of 
*  W  W  H^  shews 


1 


p.  \- 


♦ ' 


W'-  f  -i 


m\ 


22 


/./a/rA-As  ox  ///■:a'o/-:s 


they  cry  out,  ♦'  Have  a  c.irc,  there  is  the  A>^v/-  coming  !  " 
Curious  ;  that  word  survivinj,',  like  the  peak  of  a  submerged 
world !  The  ,>A/,s/  Nottingham  bargemen  had  believed  in 
the  God  Ae<'ir.  Indeed  our  Knglish  blood  too  in  good 
part  is  Dani  ,  Norse;  or  rather,  at  bottom,  Danish  and 
Norse  and  Saxon  have  no  distinction,  except  a  superficial 
one,  — as  of  Heathen  and  Christian,  or  the  like.  But  all  over 
our  Island  we  are  mingled  largely  with  Danes  proper,  — 
from  the  incessant  invasions  there  were  :  and  this,  of  course, 
'o  jn  a  greater  proportion  along  the  east  coast ;  and  greatest 
of  all,  as  I  find,  in  the  North  Country.  From  the  Humber 
upwards,  all  over  Scotland,  the  Speech  of  the  commo  :  peo- 
ple is  still  in  a  singular  degree  Icelandic;  its  Germanism 
has  still  a  peculiar  Norse  tinge.      They  too  are  '  Normans,' 

Northmen,  -   if  that  be  any  great  beauty  ! 

Of  the  chief  god,  ( )din,  we  shall  speak  by  and  by.     Mark 
at  present  so  much  ;  what  the  essence  of  Scandinavian  and 
indeed  of  all   Paganism  is :  a  recognition  of  the  forces  of 
Nature  as   godlike,   stupendous,   personal    Agencies,  —  as 
20  (Jods  and   Demons.     x\ot  inconceivable  to  us.     It  is  the 
infant  Thought  of  man  opening  itself,  with  awe  and  won- 
der, on  this  ever-stupendous  L'niverse.     To  me  there  is  in 
the  Norse  System  something  very  genuine,  very  great  and 
manlike.     A  broad  simplicity,  rusticity,  so  very  different 
from  the  light  gracefulness  of  the  old  (Ireek  Paganism,  dis- 
tinguishes this  Scandinavian  System.      It  is  Thought ;  the 
genuine  Thought  of  deep,  rude,  earnest  minds,  fairly  opened 
to  the  things  about  them ;  a  face-to-face  and  heart-to-heart 
inspection  of    the  things, —the  first  characteristic  of  all 
30  good  Thought  in  all  times.     Not  graceful  lightness,  half- 
sport,  as  in  the  Greek   Paganism  ;  a  certain  homely  truth- 
fulness and  rustic  strength,  a  great  rude  sincerity,  discloses 
itself  here.     It  is  strange,  after  our  beautiful  Apollo  statues 
and  clear  smiling  mythuses,  to  come  down  upon  the  Norse 


THK   ///hO   AS  nil- IS' I  TV 


23 


Gods  '  brewing  ale '  to  hold  their  feast  with  Aegir,  the  Sea- 
Jotun  ;  sending  out  Thor  to  get  the  caldron  '  for  them  in  the 
Jotun  country ;  Thor,  after  many  adventures,  clapping  the 
Pot  on  his  head,  like  a  huge  hat,  and  walking  off  with  it, — 
quite  lost  in  it,  the  ears  of  the  Pot  reaching  down  to  his 
heels  I  A  kind  of  vacant  hugeness,  large  awkward  giant- 
hood,  characterises  that  Norse  System  ;  enormous  force,  as 
yet  altogether  untutored,  stalking  helpless  with  large  uncer- 
tain strides.  Consider  only  their  primary  mythus  of  the 
Creation.  The  Gods,  having  got  the  Giant  Ymer  slain,  a  lo 
(iiant  made  by  'warm  wind,' -'and  much  confused  work, 
out  '  of  the  conflict  of  Frost  and  Fire,  determined  on 
constructing  a  world  with  him.  His  blood  made  the  Sea; 
his  riesh  was  the  Land,  the  Rocks  his  bones ;  of  his  eye- 
brows they  formed  Asgard  their  Gods'-Dwelling  ;  his  skull* 
was  the  great  blue  vault  of  Immensity,  and  the  brains  of  it 
became  the  Clouds.  What  a  Hyper-Urobdignagian  business  ! 
Untamed  Thought,  great,  giantlike,  enormous  ;  ~  to  be 
tamed  in  due  time  into  the  compact  greatness,  not  giant- 
like, but  godlike  and  stronger  than  gianthood,  of  the  20 
Shakspeares,  the  Goethes  !  —  Spiritually  as  well  as  bodily 
these  men  are  our  progenitors. 

1  like,  too,  that  representation  they  have  of  the  Tree 
Igdrasil.  All  Life  is  figured  by  them  as  a  Tree.  Igdrasil, 
the  Ash-tree  of  Fxistence,  has  its  roots  deep-down*  in  the 
kingdoms  of  Hela  or  Death  ;  its  trunk  reaches  up  heaven- 
liigh,  spreads  its  boughs  over  the  whole  I'niverse:  it  is  the 
Tree  of  Existence.  At  the  foot  of  it,  in  the  Death-kingdom, 
sit  Three  Nonuxs,  Fates,  —  the  Past,  Present,  Future  ;  water- 
ing its  roots  from  the  Sacred  Well.  Its  '  boughs,'  with  their  30 
buddings  and  disleatings, — events,  things  suffered,  things 


1  IP  H*  H^  cauldron  •>  II'  IP    .nrk  out 

«  H'  W  winds  IP  wind  *  IP  IP  .^cull   IP  skull 

5  H'  H»  H'  deep  down 


I -Ml 


fg-J:. 


24 


LECTURES  OX  HEROES 


done,  catastrophes,  —  stretch  through  all  lands  and  times. 
Is  not  every  leaf  of  it  a  biography,  every  fibre  there  an  act 
or  word  ?  Its  boughs  are  Histories  of  Nations.  The  rustle 
of  it  is  the  noise  of  Human  Kxistence,  onwards  from  of 
old.  It  grows  there,  the  breath  of  Human  Passion  rustling 
through  it ;  —  or  stormtost,  the  stormwind  howling  through 
it  like  the  voice  of  all  the  gods.  It  is  Igdrasil,  the  Tree  of 
Flxistence.  It  is  the  past,  the  present,  and  the  future; 
what  was  done,  what  is  doing,  what  will  be  done;  'the 
10  infinite  conjugation  of  the  verb  To  ito.'  Considering  how 
human  things  circulate,  each  inextricably  in  communion 
with  all,  —  how  the  word  I  speak  to  you  today  is  borrowed, 
not  from  Ulfila  the  Mitsogoth  only,  but  from  all  men  since 
the  first  man  began  to  speak,  —  I  find  no  similitude  so 
true  as  this  of  a  Tree.  Beautiful ;  altogether  beautiful  and 
great.  The  *^  Machine  of  the  l^niverse,' —  alas,  do  but  think 
of  that  in  contrast ! 

Well,  it  is  strange  enough  this  old  Norse  view  of  nature  ; 
different  enough  from  what  we  believe  of  Nature.     Whence 

ao  i.  specially  came,  one  would  not  like  to  be  compelled  to 
say  very  minutely  !  One  thing  we  may  say  :  It  came  from 
the  thoughts  of  Norse  men  ;  —  from  \\vi  thought,  above  all, 
of  theyfrj/  Norse  man  who  had  an  original  power  of  think- 
ing. The  First  Norse  'man  of  genius,'  as  we  should  call 
him !  Innumerable  men  had  passed  by,  across  this  Universe, 
with  a  dumb  vague  wonder,  such  as  the  very  ani  aals  may 
feel ;  or  with  a  painful,  fruitlessly  inquiring  wonder,  such 
as  men  only  feel ;  —  till  the  gre.t  Thinker  came,  the  original 
man,  the  Seer ;  whose  shaped  spoken  Thought  awakes  the 

30  slumbering  capability  of  all  into  Thought.  It  is  ever  the 
way  with  the  Thinker,  the  spiritual  Hero.  What  he  says, 
all  men  were  not  far  from  saying,  were  longing  to  say. 
The  Thoughts  of  all  start  up,  as  from  painful  enchanted 


THE   I/EA''^  .IS  DIVIXITY 


2S 


sleep,  round  his  Thought;  answering?  to  it,  N'es,  even  so! 
Joyful  to  men  as  the  dawning  of  day  from  night;— />  it 
not,  indeed,  the  awakening  for  them  from  no-being  into 
being,  from  death  into  life  ?  We  still  honour  such  a  man  ; 
call  him  Poet,  (lenius,  and  so  forth  :  but  to  these  wild  men 
he  was  a  very  magician,  a  worker  of  miraculous  unexpected 
blessing  for  them  ;  a  Prophet,  .i  Ood  !  —  Thought  once  awn^; 
ened  does  not  again  slumber  ;  unfolds  itself  into  a  System  of 
Thought ;  grows,  in  man  after  man,  generation  after  genera- 
tion, —  till  its  full  stature  is  reached,  and  such  System  of  la 
Thought  can  grow  no  farther,  but  must  give  place  to  another. 
For  the  N'orse  people,  the  man  now  named  Ddin,  and 
Chief  Norse  (lod,  we  fancy,  was  such  a  man.  A  Teacher, 
and  Captain  of  soul  and  of  body  ;  a  Hero,  of  worth  /wmeas- 
urable ;  admiration  for  whom,  transcending  the  known 
bounds,  became  adoration.  Hns  he  not  the  power  of 
articulate  Thinking ;  and  many  other  powers,  as  yet  mirac- 
ulous ?  So,  with  boundless  gratitude,  would  the  rude 
Norse  heart  feel.  Has  he  not  solved  for  them  the  sphinx- 
tnigma '  of  this  Universe  ;  given  assurance  to  them  of  their  20 
own  destiny  there  ?  Hy  him  they  know  now  what  they 
have  to  do  here,  what  to  look  for  hereafter.  Kxistence  has 
become  articulate,  melodious  by  him  ;  ho  first  has  made 
Life  alive!  —  We  may  call  this  Odin,  the  origin  of  Norse 
Mythology:  Odin,  or  whatever  name  the  First  Norse 
Thinker  bore  while  he  was  a  man  among  men.  His  view 
of  the  ITniverse  once  promulgated,  a  like  view  starts  into 
being  in  all  minds;  grows,  keeps  ever  growing,  while  it 
continues  credible  there.  In  all  minds  it  lay  written,  but 
invisibly,  as  in  sympathetic  ink ;  at  his  word  it  starts  into  30 
visibility  in  all.  Nay,  in  every  epoch  of  the  world,  the 
j^reat  event,  parent  of  all  others,  is  it  not  the  arrival  of  a 
Thinker  in  the  world  !  — 


*  H'  Sphinx-enigma 


26 


/.HCri'K/iS  OX  //AA'OAS 


•5 


One  other  thing  we  must  not  forget;  it  will  explain,  a 
little,  the  confusion  of  these  Norse  Kddas.  They  are  not 
one  coherent  System  of  Thought ;  but  properly  the  summa- 
tion of  several  successive  systems.  All  this  of  the  old 
Norse  Ikjiief  which  is  Hungout '  for  us,  in  one  level  of 
distance  in  the  Kdda,  like  a  picture  painted  on  the  same 
canvas,''  does  not  at  all  st.;nd  so  in  the  reality.  It  stands 
rather  at  all  manner  of  distances  and  depths,  of  successive 
'generations  since  the  Belief  first  began.     All  Scandinavian 

10  thinkers,  since  the  first  of  them,  contributed  to  that  Scan- 
dinavian System  of  Thought ;  in  ever-new  ''  elaboration 
and  addition,  it  is  the  combined  work  of  them  all.  What 
history  it  had,  how  it  changed  from  shape  to  shape,  by  one- 
thinker's  contribution  after  another,  till  it  got  to  the  full 
final  shape  we  see  it  under  in  the  Juiiia,  no  man  will  now 
ever  know ;  its  Councils  of  Trebisond,  Councils  of  Trent, 
Athanasiuses,  Dantes,  Luthers,  are  sunk  without  echo  in 
the  dark  night !  Only  that  it  had  such  a  history  we  en  all 
know.     Wheresoever  a  thinker  appeared,  there  in  the  thin^' 

2o  he  thought-of  *  was  a  contribution,  accession,  a  change  or 
revolution  made.  Alas,  the  grandest  'revolution'  of  all. 
the  one  made  by  the  man  Odin  himself,  i::  ..v>i  this  too 
sunk  for  us  like  the  rest !  i)f  Odin  what  history  ?  Strange 
rather  to  reflect  that  he  /i,i,/  a.  history  !  That  this  Odin,  in 
his  wild  Norse  vesture,  with  his  wild  beard  and  eyes,  his 
rude  Norse  speech  and  ways,  was  a  man  like  us ;  with  our 
sorrows,  joys,  with  our  limbs,  features ;  — intrinsically  all 
one  as  we :  and  did  such  a  work  !  But  the  work,  much  of 
it,  has  perished ;  the  worker,  all  to  the  name.      "  Wednes- 

30  day,  *  mtn  will  say  tomorrow  ;  Odin's  day  !  Of  Odin 
there  exists  no  history  ,  no  document  of  it ;  no  guess  about 
it  worth  repeating. 

MI' HMI^  flung  out      -  II"  IP  FI' canvass      MI' H»  IP  ever  new 
*  H'  Ii=  II'  thought  of  4  H'  H-  IP  Wednesday 


T'fF  iiKKo  AS  n/i'/x/ry 


a 


Snorro  indeed,  in  the  quietest  .nanner,  almost  in  .1  brief 
businesH  style,  writes  down,  in  his  //,/«/./•////<,'/(/,  how  ( )din 
was  a  heroic  Prince,  in  the  iJlack-Sea  rejjion,  with  Iwelve 
Peers,  and  a  great  people  straitened  for  room.  How  he 
led  these  Asm  (Asiatics)  of  his  out  of  Asiii ;  settled  them 
in  the  North  parts  of  Kurope,  by  warlike  conquest ;  invented 
Letters,  Poetry  and  so  forth,  —  and  came  by  and  by  to  be 
worshipped  as  '  hief  (Jod  by  these  Scandinavians,  his 
Twelve  Peers  made  into  Iwelve  Sons  of  his  own,  (iods  like 
himself:  Snorro  has  no  doubt  of  this.  Saxo  (Irammaticus.  ir 
a  very  curious  Northman  of  that  same  century,  is  still 
more  unhesitating;  scruples  not  to  find  out  a  historical 
fact  in  every  individual  mythus,  and  writes  ii  down  as  a 
terrestrial  event  in  Denmark  or  elsewhere.  Torfaus,  learned 
and  cautious,  some  centuries  later,  assigns  by  calculation  a 
i/aU  for  it :  Odin,  he  says,  came  into  Kurope  about  the  Year 
70  before  Christ.  ( )f  all  which,  as  grounded  .n\  mere  uncer- 
tainties, found  to  be  untenable  now,  I  need  say  nothing. 
Far,  very  far  beyond  the  Year  70  !  Odm's  date,  adventures, 
whole  terrestrial  history,  figure  and  environment  are  sunk  20 
from  us  forever  into  unknown  thousands  of  years. 

Nay  Crimm,  the  (lerman  Antiquary,  goes  so  far  as  to 
deny  that  any  man  Odin  ever  existed.  He  pro  s  it  by 
etymology.  The  word  li'ui>/,ni,  \\\\\c\\  's  the  original  form 
of  Oiiiii,  a  word  spread,  as  name  of  their  chief  Divinity,  over 
:ill  the  Teutonic  Nations  everywhere;  this  word,  which 
connects  itself,  according  to  Grimm,  with  the  Latin  rut/ere, 
with  the  English  idhh'  and  suchlike,'-  -  means  primarily 
Movement,  Source  of  Movement,  Power ;  and  is  the  fit  name 
of  the  highest  god,  not  of  any  man.  The  word  signifies  3c 
Divinity,  he  says,  among  the  old  Saxon,  German  and  all 
Teutonic  Nations ;  the  adjectives  formed  from  it  all  signify 
iiivine,  supreme,  or  something  pertaining  to  the  chief  god. 
1  H'  H»  IV  such  like 


M 


28 


LEC TURKS   ON  HEROES 


Like  enough  !  We  must  bow  to  Grimm  in  matters  ety- 
mological. Let  us  consider  it  fixed  that  Wiiotan  means 
l/(i(/iii!^,  force  of  Movement.  And  now  still,  what  hinders  it 
from  being  the  name  of  a  Heroic  Man  and  Afovcr,  as  well 
as  of  a  god  ?  As  for  the  adjectives,  and  words  formed  from 
it,  —  did  not  the  Spaniards  in  their  universal  admiration 
for  Lope,  get  into  the  habit  of  saying  'a  Lope  flower,'  'a 
Lope  t/ama,'  if  the  flower  or  woman  were  of  surpassing 
beauty  ?    Had  this  lasted,  Lo/>i-  would  have  grown,  in  Spain, 

f  to  be  an  adjective  signifying  godlike  also.  Indeed,  Adam 
Smith,  in  his  r'.ssay  on  lAinguagc,  surmises  that  all  adjectives 
whatsoever  were  formed  precisely  in  that  way:  some  very 
green  thing,  chiefly  notable  for  its  greenness,  got  the  appel- 
lative name  Green,  and  then  the  next  thing  remarkable  for 
that  quality,  a  tree  for  instance,  was  named  the  green  tree,  -  - 
as  we  still  say  'the  steam  coach,'  'four-horse  coach,'  or  the 
like.  All  primary  adjectives,  according  to  Smith,  were 
formed  in  this  way ;  were  at  first  substantives  and  things. 
We    cannot    annihilate  a  man    for  etymologies  like  that ! 

20  Surely  there  was  a  First  Teacher  and  Captain  ;  surely  there 
must  have  been  an  Odin,  palpable  to  the  sense  at  one  time ; 
no  adjective,  but  a  real  Hero  of  flesh  and  blood  !  The  voice 
of  all  tradition,  history  or  echo  of  history,  agrees  with  all 
that  thought  will  teach  one  about  it,  to  assure  us  of  this. 

How  the  man  Odin  came  to  be  considered  a^W,  the  chief 
god?  —  that  surely  is  a  question  which  nobody  would  wish 
to  dogmatise  upon.  I  have  said,  his  people  knew  no  iimtts 
to  their  admiration  of  him  ;  they  had  as  yet  no  scale  to 
measure  admiration  by.     Fancy  your  own  generous  heart's- 

30  Ic  .'  of  some  greatest  man  expanding  till  it  tramrended  all 
bounds,  till  it  filled  and  overflowed  the  whole  field  of  your 
thought !  Or  what  if  this  man  Odin,  —  since  a  great  deep 
soul,  with  the  afflatus  and  mysterious  tide  of  vision  and 
impulse  rushing  on  him  he  knows  not  whei._v.,  is  ever  an 


THE   HEKO   AS  DIVIiVITY 


29 


enigma,  a  kind  of  terror  and  wonder  to  himself, —  should 
have  felt  that  perhaps  he  was  divine ;  that  he  was  some 
effluence  of  the  «\Vuotan,'  '  Mo;cmciit,''  Supreme  Power  and 
Divinity,  of  whom  to  his  rapt  vision  all  Nature  was  the 
awful  Flame-irnage;  that  some  effluence  of  Wiiotan  dwelt 
here  in  him  !  He  was  not  necessarily  false ;  he  was  but 
mistaken,  speaking  the  truest  he  knew.  A  great  soul,  any 
sincere  soul,  knows  not  tvhat  he  is,  —  alternates  between  the 
highest  height  and  the  lowest  deptii ;  can,  of  all  things,  the 
least  measure  — Himself !  What  others  take  him  for,  and  lo 
what  he  guesses  that  he  may  be ;  these  two  items  strangely 
act  on  one  another,  help  to  determine  one  another.  With 
all  men  reverently  admiring  him;  with  his  own  wild  soul 
full  of  noble  ardours  and  affections,  of  whirlwind  chaotic 
darkness  and  glorious  new  light ;  a  divine  Universe  burst- 
ing all  into  godlike  beauty  round  him,  and  no  man  to  whom 
the  like  ever  had  befallen,  what  could  he  think  himself  to 
be  .'     "  Wuotan  ? "     All  men  answered,  "  Wuotan  !  " 

.\nd  then  consider  what  mere  Time  will  do  in  such  cases  ; 
how  if  a  man  was  great  while  living,  he  becomes  tenfold  20 
greater  when  dead.  What  an  enormous  canura-ohscura 
magnifier  is  Tradition  !  How  a  thing  grows  in  the  human 
Memory,  in  the  human  Imagination,  when  love,  worship 
and  all  that  lies  in  the  human  Heart,  is  there  to  encourage 
It.  And  in  the  darkness,  in  the  entire  ignorance;  without 
date  or  document,  no  book,  no  Arundel-marble;  only  here 
and  there  some  dumb  monumental  cairn.  Why,  in  thirty 
or  forty  years,  were  there  no  books,  any  gre.it  man  would 
grow  mythic,  the  contemporaries  who  had  seen  him,  being 
once  all  dead.  And  in  three-hundred  '  years,  and  in  three-  jc 
Ihousand^years  — !  — To  attempt  theorising  oi\  such  matters 
would  profit  little  :  they  are  matters  which  refuse  to  be  theo- 
remedTm^  diagramed  ;  which  Logic  ought  to  know  that  she 
'  II'  H'  IP  three  hundred  2  jp  H2  jp  three  thousand 


f«'t 


30 


LECTURES  OiX  HEROES 


\    s 


cannot  speak  of.     Enough  for  us  to  discern,  far  in  the  utter 
most  distance,  some  gleam  as  of  a  small  real  light  shining 
in  the  centre  of  that  enormous  camera-obscura  image  ;  to 
discern  that  the  centre  of  it  all  was  not  a  madness  and 
nothing,  but  a  sanity  and  something. 

This  light,  kindled  in  the  great  dark  vortex  of  the  Norse 
mind,'  dark  but  living,  waiting  only  for  light ;  this  is  to  mc 
the  centre  of  the  whole.  How  such  light  will  then  shine- 
out,  and    with    wondrous    thousandfold  expansion    spread 

10  itself,  in  forms  and  colours,  depends  not  on  //,  so  much  as 
on  the  National  Mind  recipient  of  it.  The  colours  and 
forms  of  your  light  will  be  those  of  the  cut-glass  it  has  to 
shine  through.  —  Curious  to  think  how,  for  every  man,  any 
the  truest  fact  is  modelled  by  the  nature  of  the  man !  I 
said.  The  earnest  man,  speaking  to  his  brother  men,  must 
always  have  stated  what  seemed  to  him  z.fact,  a  real  Appear- 
ance of  Nature.  But  the  way  in  which  such  Appearance  or 
fact  shaped  itself,  —  what  sort  oi/act  it  became  for  him,  - 
was  and  is  modified  by  his  own  laws  of  thinking;  deep, 

20  subtle,  but  universal,  ever-operating  laws.  The  world  of 
Nature,  for  every  man,  is  the  Phantasy^  of  Himself;  this 
world  is  the  multiplex  'Image  of  his  own  Dream.'  Who 
knows  to  what  unnameable  subtleties  of  spiritual  law  all 
these  Pagan  Fables  owe  their  shape  !  The  number  Iwchc, 
divisiblest  of  all,  which  could  be  halved,  quartered,  parted 
into  three,  into  six,  the  most  remarkable  number,  —  this 
was  enough  to  determine  the  Signs  of  the  Zodiac,  the  number 
of  Odin's  Sons,  and  innumerable  other  Twelves.  Any  vague 
rumour  of   number  had   a  tendency    to    settle    itself   into 

50  Twelve.  So  with  regard  to  every  other  matter.  And  quite 
unconsciously  too, —  with  no  notion  of  building-up'  'Allego- 


ries 


i'  t 


But  the  fresh  clear  glance  of  those  First  Ages  would 

1  IP  IF  II'  Mind  •■*  IP  IP  H^  Fantasy 

3H'  IP  HMmildingup 


THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY 


31 


be  prompt  in  discerning  tiie  secret  relations  of  things,  and 
wholly  open  to  obey  these.  Schiller  finds  in  the  Ccstus  of 
Venus  an  everlasting  .-vsthetic  truth  as  to  the  nature  of  all 
Beauty ;  curious  :  -  but  he  is  careful  not  to  insinuate  that 
the  old  Greek  Mythists  had  any  notion  of  lecturing  about 

the  '  Philosophy  of  Criticism' ! On  the  whole,  we  must 

leave  those  boundless  regions.  Cannot  we  conceive  that 
Odin  was  a  reality  ?  Error  indeed,  error  enough  :  but  sheer 
falsehood,  idle  fables,  allegory  aforethought,  —  we  will  not 
believe  that  our  Fathers  believed  in  these.  lo 

Odin's  KiiiiiS  are  a  significant  feature  of  him.  Runes, 
.md  the  miracles  of  '  magic  '  ho  worked  by  them,  make  a 
great  feature  in  tradition.  Runes  are  the  Scandinavian 
Alphabet;  suppose  Odin  to  have  been  the  inventor  of 
I.etters,  as  well  as  'magic,'  among  that  people!  It  is  the 
greatest  invention  man  has  ever  made,  this  of  marking- 
down^  the  unseen  thought  that  is  in  him  by  written  char- 
acters. It  is  a  kind  of  second  speech,  almost  as  miraculous 
as  the  first.  Vou  remember  the  astonishment  and  incre- 
dulity of  Atahualpa,  the  Peruvian  King ;  how  he  made  the  20 
Spanish  Soldier  who  was  guarding  him  scratch  Dios  on  his 
thumb-nail,  that  he  might  try  the  next  soldier  with  it,  to 
ascertain  whether  such  a  miracle  was  pos:,ible.  If  Odin 
brought  Letters  among  his  people,  he  might  work  magic 
enough  ! 

Writing  by  Runes  has  some  air  of  being  original  among 
the  Norsemen:  not  a  I'httnician-'  Alphabet,  but  a  native 
Scandinavian  one.  Snorro  tells  us  farther  that  Odin 
invented  Poetry  ;  the  music  of  human  speech,  as  well  as 
that  miraculous  runic  marking  of  it.  Transport  yourselves  3° 
into  the  early  childhood  of  nations ;  the  first  beautiful 
morning-light  of  our  Europe,  whv-'n  all  yet  lay  in  fresh  young 
radiance  as  of  a  great  sunrise,  and  our  Europe  was  first 

1  JF  IF  1 1 '  marking  down  -11'  IP  II'  I'henician 


11 

i 

\\ 

> 

1 

m 

f   4 

\ 

,    \ 

W- 


Y   ■■  » 


I:.!!! 


i 


32 


LECTLRES  ON  HEROES 


%:. 


•!?' 


I*: 


beginning  to  think,  to  be  !  Wonder,  hope ;  infinite  radiance 
of  hope  and  wonder,  as  of  a  young  child's  thoughts,  in  the 
hearts  of  these  strong  men  !  Strong  sons  of  Nature;  and 
here  was  not  only  a  wild  Captain  and  Fighter;  discerning 
with  his  wild  flashing  eyes  what  to  do,  with  his  wild  lion- 
heart  daring  and  doing  it ;  but  a  Poet  too,  all  that  we  mean 
by  a  Poet,  Prophet,  great  devout  Thinker  and  Inventor, 
as  the  truly  Great  Man  ever  is.  A  Hero  is  a  Hero  at  all 
points  ;  in  the  soul  and  thought  of  him  first  of  all.      I'his 

»o  Odin,  in  his  rude  semi-articulate  way,  had  a  word  to  speak. 
A  great  heart  laid  open  to  take  in  this  great  Universe,  and 
man's  Life  here,  and  utter  a  great  word  about  it.  A  Hero, 
as  I  say,  in  his  own  rude  manner;  a  wise,  gifted,  noble- 
hearted  man.  And  now,  if  we  still  admire  such  a  man 
beyond  all  others,  what  must  these  wild  Norse  souls,  fi  . 
awakened  into  thinking,  have  made  of  him !  To  them,  is 
yet  without  names  for  it,  he  was  noble  and  noblest ;  Hero, 
Prophet,  God  ;  Wttotan,  the  greatest  of  all.  Thought  is 
Thought,  however  it  speak  or  spell  itself.     Intrinsically,   I 

20  conjecture,  this  Odin  must  have  been  of  the  same  sort  of 
stuff  as  the  greatest  kind  of  men.  A  great  thought  in  the 
wild  deep  heart  of  him  !  The  rough  words  he  articulated, 
are  they  not  the  rudimental  roots  of  those  English  words 
we  still  use  .'  He  worked  so,  in  that  obscure  element.  I5ut 
he  was  as  a  light  kindled  in  it;  a  light  of  Intellect,  rude 
Nobleness  of  heart,  the  only  kind  of  lights  '  we  have  yet ; 
a  Hero,  as  I  say  :  and  he  had  to  shine  there,  and  make  his 
obscure  element  a  little  lighter,  —  as  is  still  the  task  of  us  all. 
We  will  fancy  him  to  be  the  Type  Norseman^;  the  finest 

30  Teuton  whom  that  race  had  yet  produced.     The  rude  Norse 
heart  burst-up ^  into /'('////r/'/fjj-  admiration  round  him;  into 


iH'  11=  the  only  light 

''H'  Type-Norseman;   11=  Type-Northman; 

3H'  H=H^  burst  up 


THE   IIEKO   AS  DIVINITY 


33 


) 


adoration.  He  is  as  a  root  of  so  many  great  tilings  ;  the 
fruit  of  liim  is  found  growing,  from  deep  thousands  of  ycHrs, 
over  the  whole  field  of  'i'eutonic  Life.  Our  own  Wednes- 
day, as  I  said,  is  it  not  still  Odin'.s  Day'  Wcdnesbury, 
Wansborough,  Wanstead,  Wandsworth:  Odin  grew  into 
Kngland  too,  these  are  still  leaves  from  that  lOot !  He  v  as 
the  Chief  (lod  to  all  the  Teutonic  I'eoples,  their  I'attein 
Norseman  ;  -  in  such  way  did  tliiv  admire  their  Pattern 
Norseman';  that  was  the  fortune  he  had  in  the  world. 

Thus  if  the  man  Odin  himself  have  vanished  utterly,  lo 
there  is  this  huge  Shadow  of  him  which  still  projects  it.self 
over  the  whole  History  of  his  I'eople.  For  this  Odin 
once  admitted  lo  be  God,  we  can  understand  well  that  the 
whole  Scandinavian  Scheme  of  Nature,  or  dim  No-scheme, 
whatever  it  might  before  have  been,  would  now  begin  to 
develop'^  itself  altogether  differently,  and  grow  thenceforth 
in  a  new  manner.  What  this  Odin  saw  into,  and  tausrht 
with  his  runes  and  his  rhymes,  the  whole  Teutonic  People 
laid  to  heart  and  carried  forward.  His  wav  of  thought 
became  their  way  of  thought :  — such,  under  now  conditions,  20 
is  the  history  of  every  great  thinker  still.  In  gigantic 
confused  lineaments,  like  some  enormous  camera-c  bscura 
shadow  thrown  upwards  from  tlic  dead  deeps  of  the  Past, 
and  covering  the  wliole  Northern  Heaven,  is  not  that 
Scandinavian  Mythology  in  soiae  sort  the  Portraiture  of 
this  man  Odin  ?  The  gigantic  image  of  his  natural  face, 
legible  or  not  legible  ther*;,  expanded  and  confused  in  that 
manner!  .\h, 'Thought,  I  say,  is  always  Thought.  No  great 
man  lives  in  vain.  'The  History  of  the  world  is  but  the 
Biography  of  great  men.  ;,c 

To  me  there  is  something  very  touching  in  this  primeval 
tigure  of  Heroism  ;  in  such  artless,  helpless,  but  hearty  entire 
leeeption  of  a  iiero  by  his  fellow -men.      Never  so  iielpless 

'  IP  If    Northman  -II'  IT  ;  I '  tUvt'loiJe 


mam 


34 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


IK.  '■' 


'l 


in  shape,  it  is  the  noblest  of  feelings,  and  a  feeling  in  some 
shape  or  other  perennial  as  man  himself.  If  I  could  show  ' 
in  any  measure,  what  I  feel  deeply  for  a  long  time  now, 
That  it  is  the  vital  element  of  manhood,  the  soul  of  man's 
history  here  in  our  world,  —  it  would  be  the  chief  use  of  this 
discoursing  at  present.  We  do  not  now  call  our  great  men 
Gods,  nor  admire  loitlwiit  limit ;  ah  no,  with  limit  enough ! 
But  if  we  have  no  great  men,  or  do  not  admire  at  all,  — that 
were  a  still  worse  case. 

n  This  poor  Scandinavian  Hero-worship,  that  whole  Norse 
way  of  looking  at  the  Universe,  and  adjusting  oneself  there, 
has  an  indestructible  merit  for  us.  A  rude  chi'dlike  way  of 
recognising  the  divineness  of  Nature,  the  divineness  of 
Man  ;  most  rude,  yet  heartfelt,  robust,  giantlike;  betokening 

what  a  giant  of  a  man  this  child  would  yet  grow  to  ! It " 

was  a  truth,  and  is  none.  Is  it  not  as  the  half-dumb  stifled 
voice  of  the  long-buried  generations  of  our  own  Fathers, 
calling  out  of  the  depths  of  ages  to  us,  in  whose  veins  their 
blood  still  runs:   "This  then,  this  is  what  u>c  made  of  the 

;o  world :  this  is  all  the  image  and  notion  we  could  form  to 
ourselves  of  this  great  mystery  of  a  Life  and  Universe. 
Despise  it  not.  You  are  raised  high  above  it,  to  lar"-e  free 
scope  of  vision  ;  but  you  too  are  not  yet  at  the  top.  No, 
your  notion  too,  so  much  enlarged,  is  but  a  partial,  imper- 
fect one  :  that  matter  is  a  thing  no  man  will  ever,  in  time 
or  out  of  time,  comprehend;  after  thousands  of  years  of 
ever-new  expansion,  man  will  find  himself  but  struggling  to 
comprc-hend  again  a  part  of  it:  the  thing  is  larger  than 
man,  not  to  be  comprehended  by  him  ;  an  Infinite  thing !  " 


30       The  essence  of  the  Scandinavian,  as  indeed  of  all  Pagan 
Mythologies,  wl-  found   to  be  recognition  of  the  divineness 
of  Nature ;  sincere  comnuinion  of  man  with  the  mysterious 
'II'  11^  IP  shew  2Ii'  \v  II' to!     It 


THE   HERO  AS  DIVINITY 


35 


invisible  Powers  visibly  seen  at  work  in  the  world  round 
him.      This,    I  should  say,  is  more  sincerely  done  in   the 
Scandinavian  than  in  any  Mythology   I   know.     Sincerity 
is  the  great  characterist'.J  of    it.     Superior  sincerity   (far 
superior)   consoles  us  for  the  total  want   of    old    (Irecian 
grace.     Sincerity,  I  think,  is  better  than  grace.      I  feel  that 
these  old  Northmen  were  looking  into  Nature  with  open  eye 
ana  ^oul :  most  earnest,  honest ;  childlike,  and  yet  manlike  ; 
with  a  great-hearted  '  simplicity  and  depth  and  freshness,  in 
a  true,  loving,  admiring,  unfearing  way.     A  right  valiant,  ic 
true  old    race    of    men.     Such  recognition  of  Nature'  one- 
finds  to  be  the  chief  element  of    Paganism:  recognition  of 
Man,  and  his  Moral  Duty,  though  this  too  is  not  wanting, 
comes  to  be  the  chief  element  only  in  purer  forms  of  reli- 
gion.    Here,  indeed,  is  a  great  distinction  and  epoch  in 
Human  Beliefs;  a  great  landmark  in  the  religious  develop- 
ment of  Mankind.     Man  lirst  puts  himself  in  relation  with 
Nature  and  her  Powers,  wonders  and  worships  over  those; 
not    till  a  later  epoch  does  he  discern  that  all    Power  is 
Moral,  that  the  grand  point  is  the  distinction  for  him  of  20 
Good  and  F.vil,  of  Thou  sJuilt  and  Tltoii  shalt  not. 

With  regard  to  all  these  fabulous  delineations  in  the 
EMi,  I  will  remark,  moreover,  as  indeed  was  already  hinted, 
that  most  probably  they  must  have  been  of  much  newer 
date  ;  most  probably,  even  from  the  first,  were  compara- 
tively idle  for  the  old  Norseman,  and  as  it  were  a  kind  of 
Pot^'^"  sport.  Allegory  and  Poetic  Delineation,  as  I  said 
above,  cannot  be  religious  Faith  ;  the  Faith  itself  must 
first  be  there,  then  Allegory  enough  will  gather  round  it, 
as  the  fit  body  round  its  soul.  The  Norse  Faith,  I  can  well  30 
suppose,  like  other  Faiths,  was  most  active  while  it  lay 
mainly  in  the  silent  state,  and  \vm\  not  yet  much  to  say 
about  itself,  still  less  to  sing. 

Ill'  1'-  II'grcalhL-artfd 


I 


!  I 


36 


LECTURES  ON  ItEKOES 


iiH 


Among  those  shadowy  R,ida  matters,  a.r.iJ  all  that  fan 
tastic  congeries  of  assertions,  and  traditions  in  their  m-isiral 
Mythologies,  the  main  practical  belief  a  man   -  ave 

was  probably  not  much  more  than  this:  of  the  .  .  .    ./-jand 
the  Ilall of  Oiiiii;  of  an  inflexible   Destiny;  and  that  th  ■ 
one  thing  needful  for  a  man  was  to  be  hrmc      The  I'alkyrs 
are  Choosers  of  the  Slain:  a  Destiny  inexorable,  which  it 
is  useless  trying  to  bend  or  soften,  has  appointed  who  is 
to  be  slain;  this  was  a  fundamental  point  for  the  Norse 
10  believer;  — as  iiuleed  it  is  for  all  earnest  men  everywhere, 
.for  a  Mahomet,  a  Luther,  for  a  Napoleon  too.     It  lies  at 
the  basis  this  for  every  such  man  ;  it  is  the  woof  out  of 
which  his  whole  system  of  thought  is  woven.     The  Valkxrs ; 
and  then  that  these  Choosers  lead  the  brave  to  a  heavenly 
Hall  of  Odin;  only  the  base  and  slavish  being  thrust  else- 
whither, into  the  realms  of  Hela  the  Death-goddess  .  I  take 
this  to  have  been  the  soul  of  the  whole  Norse  Belief.     They 
understood  in  their  heart  that  it  was  indispensable  to  be 
brave;    that  Odin  would   have  no  favour   for   them,  but 
20  despise  and  thrust  them  out,  if  they  were  not  brave.     Con- 
sider too  whether  there  is  not  something  in  this !     It  is  an 
everlasting  duty,  valid  in  our  day  as  in  that,  the  duty  of 
being  brave.      Valour  is  still   value.     The  first  duty  for  a 
man  is  still  that  of  subduing  Fear.     We  must  get  rid  of 
Fear;  we  cannot  act  at  all   till  then.     A  man's  acts  are 
slavish,  not  true  but  specious  ;  his  very  thoughts  are  false, 
he  thinks  too  as  a  slave  and  coward,  till  he  have  got  Fear 
under  his  feet.     Odin's  creed,  if  we  disentangle  the  real 
kernel  of  it,  is  true  to  this  hour.     A  man  shall  and  must  be 
30  valiant ;  he  must  march  forward,  and  quit  himself  like  a 
man,  —  trusting    imperturbably    in    the  appointment    and 
choice  of  the  upper  Powers ;  and,  on  the  whole,  not  fear  at 
all.     Now  and  always,  the  completeness  of  his  victory  over 
Fear  will  determine  how  much  of  u  man  he  is. 


THE  HERO  AS  D/r/X/TY 


37 


It  is  doubtless  very  savage  that  kind  of  valour  of  the  old 
Northmen.  Snorro  tells  us  they  thouj^ht  it  a  shame  and 
misery  not  to  die  in  battle ;  and  if  natural  death  seemed  to 
be  coming  on,  they  would  cut  wounds  in  their  flesh,  that 
Odin  might  receive  them  as  warriors  slain.  Old  kings, 
about  to  die,  had  their  body  laid  into  a  ship;  the  ship  sent 
forth,  with  sails  set  and  slow  fire  burning  it ;  that,  once 
out  at  sea,  it  might  blaze-up'  in  flame,  and  in  such  manner 
bury  worthily  the  old  hero,  at  once  in  the  sky  and  in  the 
ocean  !  Wild  bloody  valour  ;  yet  valour  of  its  kind  ;  better,  lo 
I  say,  than  none.  In  the  old  Sea-kings  too,  what  an  indom- 
itable rugged  energy  !  Silent,  with  closed  lip>,  as  I  fancy 
them,  unconscious  that  they  were  specially  brave ;  defying 
the  wild  ocean  with  its  monsters,  and  all  men  and  things ; 

—  progenitors  of  our  own  IMakes  and  Nelsons  !  No  Homer 
sang  these  Norse  Sea-kings  ;  but  Agamemnon's  was  a  small 
audacity,  and  of  small  fruit  in  the  world,  to  some  of  them ; 

—  to  Hrolf's  of  Normandy,  for  instance  !  Hrolf,  or  Rollo 
Duke  of  Normandy,  the  wild  Sea-king,  has  a  share  in  gov- 
erning England  at  this  hour.  20 

Nor  was  it  altogether  nothing,  even  that  wild  sea-roving 
and  battling,  through  so  many  generations.  It  needed  to 
be  ascertained  which  was  the  strt>/ii^i-sl  kind  of  men  ;  who 
were  to  be  ruler  over  whom.  Among  the  Northland  Sover- 
eigns, too,  I  find  some  who  got  the  title  IVootf-cuttcr ; 
Forest-felling  Kings.  Much  lies  in  that.  I  suppose  at 
bottom  many  of  them  were  forest-fellers  as  well  as  fighters, 
though  the  Skalds  talk  mainly  of  the  latter,  —  misleading 
certain  critics  not  a  little  ;  for  no  nation  of  men  could  ever 
live  by  fighting  alone;  there  could  not  produce  enough  30 
come  out  of  that  !  I  suppose  the  right  good  fighter  was 
oftenest  also  the  right  good  forest-feller,  the  right  good 
improver,  discerner,  doer  and  worker  in  every  kind  ;  for 


i    t     :-"*J 


¥ 


I:      I 


1  H«  W  IV  blaze  up 


38 


LKCTURKS  OX  l/EROKS 


1  ,■' 


fc 


true  valour,  different  enouprh  from  ferocity,  is  the  basis  of 
all.  A  more  L-itimate  itind  of  valour  that ;  showing' '  itself 
against  the  untamed  lorests  and  dari<  brute  Powers  of 
Nature,  to  conquer  Nature  for  us.  In  the  same  direction 
have  not  we  their  descendants  since  carried  it  far  .'  May 
.such  valour  last  forever  with  us ! 

That  the  man  Odin,  speaking  with  a  Hero's  voice  and 
heart,  as  with  an  impressiveness  out  of  Heaven,  told  his 
People  the  infinite  importance  of  Valour,  how  m.an  thereby 
to  became  a  god  ;  and  that  his  People,  feeling  a  response  to  it 
in  their  own  hearts,  believed  this  message  of  his,  and  thought 
it  a  message  out  of  Heaven,  and  him  a  Divinity  for  telling 
it  them:  this  s.jems  to  me  the  primary  seed  grain  of  the 
Norse  Religion,  from  which  all  manner  of  mythologies,  sym- 
bolic practices,  speculations,  allegories,  songs  and  sagas 
would  naturally  grow.     (Jrow,   -  how  strangely  !     I  called 
it  a  small  light  shining  and  shaping  in  the  huge  vortex  of 
Norse  darkness.     Yet  the  darkness  itself  was  ulirc ;  con- 
sider that.     It  was  the  eager  inarticulate  uninstructed  Mind 
20  of  the  whole  Norse  People,  longin-  only  to  become  articu- 
late, to  go  on  articulating  ever  farther  !     The  living  doctrine 
grows,  grows;  — like  a  Hanyan-tree  ;   the  tirst  sad  is  the 
essential  thing:   any  branch  strikes   itself  down  into  the 
earth,  becomes  a  new  root ;  and  so,  in  endless  complexity, 
we  have  a  wh   le  wood,  a  whole  jungle,  one  seed  the  parent 
of  it  all.     Was  not  the  whole  Xorse  Religion,  accordingly, 
in  some  sense,  what  we  called  'the  enormous  shadow  of 
this  man's  likeness'.'     Critics  trace  some  affinity  in  some 
Norse  mythuses,  of  the  Creation  and  suchlike,*  with  those 
3°  of  the    Hindoos.      The  Cow  .Adumbia,  'licking  the   rime 
from  the  rocLs,'  has  a  kind  of  Hindoo  look.     A   Hindoo 
Cow,  transported  into  frosty  countries.      Probably  enough  ; 
indeed  we  may  say  undoubtedly,  these  things  will  have  a 
»  II'  IP  Hi  shewing  ^  II>  IP  Hi  such  like 


r///;  iiEh'o  AS  /i/r/x/ry 


j'> 


kindred  with  the  remotest  linds,  with  the  earliest  timea. 
Thoiijjht  does  not  die,  Init  only  is  changed.  I'he  Hrst  man 
that  be«;m  to  think  in  this  I'lanet  of  ours,  he  was  the 
beginner  ot  all.  And  then  the  second  man,  and  the  third 
man;  —  nay,  every  true  Thinker  to  this  hour  is  a  kind  of 
Odin,  teaches  men  ///.r  way  of  tliouj,  ..  spreads  a  shadow 
of  his  own  likeness  over  sections  of  the  History  of  the 
World. 


Of  the  distinctive  poetic  character  or  merit  of  this  Norse 
Mythology  I  have  not  room  to  speak  ;  imr  does  it  concern  "c 
us  much.  Some  wild  I'rophecies  we  have,  as  the  Voluspa '  in 
the  I'.l.lir  /u/ifti ;  of  a  rapt,  earnest,  sil)\  Mine  sort.  iJut  they 
were  comparatively  an  idle  adjunct  of  tiie  matter,  men  who 
as  it  were  but  toyed  with  the  matter,  these  later  Skalds ; 
and  it  is  t/uir  son<,'s  chiefly  that  survive.  In  later  centu- 
ries, I  suppose,  they  would  <,'o  on  sinj^'inj;,  poetically  symbol- 
ising,'' as  our  modern  I'ainters  paint,  wiien  it  was  no  longer 
from  the  innermost  heart,  or  not  from  the  heart  at  all. 
This  is  every    here  to  be  well  kept  in  mind. 

Gray's  fragments  of  Norse  Lore,  at  any  rate,  will  give  :;c 
one  no  notion  of  it  ;  —  any  more  than  i'ope  will  of  Homer. 
It  is  no  square-built  gloomy  palace  of  black  ashlar  marble, 
shrouded  in  awe  and  horror,  as  Oray  gives  it  us  :  no  ;  rough 
as  the  North  rocks,  as  the  Iceland  deserts,  it  is  ;  with  a 
heartiness,  homeliness,  even  a  tint  of  good  humour  '  and 
robust  mirth  in  the  middle  of  these  fearful  things.  The 
strong  old  Norse  heart  did  not  go  upon  theatrical  sublimi- 
ties; they  had  not  time  to  tremble.  I  like  much  iheir 
robust  simplicity  ;  their  veracity,  directness  of  conception. 
Thor  'draws  down  his  brows'  in  a  veritable  Norse  rage;  3' 
•grasps  his  hammer  till  the  i-'fUiMs-  ^r'tno  ivh.Ht-:      Heautiful 

'  II'  IF  II'  ILtvawal  '^  11'  II-'  II '  synil.olizing 

•  II'  HMI'goodhumour 


i  n 


40 


/.KCTirRt-S  ox  /fHKOFS 


■I 


*l 


traits  of  p''  oo,  an  hone»t  pity.  Ibhlcr  •  the  white  (lod  ' 
dies;  ♦' .  -tMutifuI,  l»eni},'nant ;  he  is  the  Sungod.  They 
try  all  Nature  for  a  remedy ;  but  he  is  dead.  Frigga,  his 
mother,  sends  Hermoder '  to  seek  or  see  him:  nine  days 
and  nine  nights  he  rides  through  gloomy  deep  valleys,  a 
labyrinth  of  gloom  ;  arrives  at  the  Bridge  with  its  gold 
roof :  the  Keeper  says,  "  \es,  Haider  did  pass  here ;  but 
the  Kingdom  of  the  Dead  is  down  yonder,  far  towards 
the  North."  Hermodtr  "^  rides  on  ;  leaps  Hell-gate,  Mela's 
10  gate  ;  does  see  Haider,  and  speak  with  him:  Haider  cannot 
be  delivered.  Inexorable  !  Hela  will  not,  for  ( )din  or  any 
God,  give  him  up.  The  beautiful  and  gentle  has  to  'emain 
there.  His  Wife  had  volunteered  to  go  with  him,  to  die 
with  him.  They  shall  forever  remain  there.  He  sends 
his  ring  to  Odin;  Nanna  his  wife  sends  her  thimble  to 
Frigga,  as  a  remembrance'' —  Ah  me  !  — 

For  indeed  Valour  is  the  fountain  of  I'ity  too;  —  of 
Truth,  and  all  that  is  great  and  good  in  man.  The  robust 
homely  vigour  of  the  Norse  heart  attaches  one  much,  in 
20  these  delineat.ons.  .s  it  not  a  trait  of  right  honest  strength, 
says  Uhland,  who  has  written  a  tine  Ajj./.i  -t  I'hor,  tiiat 
the  old  N(jrse  heart  finds  its  friend  in  the  Thunder-god  ? 
'rh.a  it  is  not  frightened  away  by  his  thunder  ;  but  finds 
that  Summer-heat,  the  beautiful  noble  summer,  must  and 
will  have  thunder  withal  !  The  Norse  heart  loves  this  i'hor 
and  his  hammer-bolt ;  sports  with  him.  Thor  is  Summer- 
heat ;  the  god  of  Peaceable  Industry  as  well  as  Thunder. 
He  is  the  Peasant's  friend  ;  his  true  henchman  and  attend- 
ant is  'ThiaUi,  Mamuil  Labour.  I'hor  himself  engages  in 
30  all  manner  of  rough  manual  work,  scorns  no  business  for 
its  plebeianism  ;  is  ever  and  anon  travelling  to  the  country 
of  the  Jotuns,  harrying  those  c'^.aotic   Frost-monsters,  sub- 

1  H'  11='  llerniode  -  II'  H^'  llermode 

'  II*  W  IP  remembrance.  — 


Tllh    tlllh'O  AS  nirixiTY 


41 


duinjj   them,    at    least   .straitening    and   damaging   them. 
The  2  is  a  great  hroad  humour  in  «,ome  of  these  things. 

Thor,  as  we  saw  above,  goes  to  jotun-land,  to  seek 
Hymir's  Caldron,'  that  the  (lods  may  brew  beer.  Hymir 
the  huge  (Jiant  tnters  his  gray  beard  all  full  of  hoar-frost ; 
splits  pillars  with  the  very  glance  of  his  eye ;  I'hor,  after 
much  rough  tumult,  snatches  the  I'ot,  claps  it  on  his  head  ; 
the  'handles  of  it  reach  down  to  his  heels'  The  Norse 
Skald  has  a  kind  of  loving  sport  with  i'hor.  This  is  the 
Hymir  whose  cattle,  the  critics  have  discovered,  arc  Ice-  lo 
bergs.  Huge  untutored  Ilrobdignag  genius,  needing  only 
lo  be  tamed-down-;  into  Shakspeares,  Dantes,  (loethes! 
It  is  all  gone  now,  that  old  N'orsc  work, —  I'hor  the 
Thunder-god  '  changed  into  J.u;k  the  (liant-killcr :  but  the 
mind  that  made  it  is  here  yet.  How  strangely  things  grow, 
and  die,  and  do  not  die !  There  are  twigs  of  that  great 
world-tree  of  Norse  Belief  still  curiously  traceable.  This 
poor  Jack  of  the  Nursery,  with  his  miraculous  shoes  of 
swiftness,  coat  of  darkness,  sword  of  sharpness,  he  is  one. 
Ilymh-  Etbi,^  and  still  more  decisively  Kid Ktin  <>/ /tr/anJ,  in  20 
the  Scottish  Hallads.  these  a»e  both  derived  from  Norseland  ; 
/■Ifin  is  evidently  a  Jotitn.''  Nay,  Shakspeare's  Iliimkt  is  a 
twig  too  of  this  same  world-tree  ;  there  seems  no  doubt  of 
that.  Hamlet,  Amktli,  I  find,  is  really  x  mythic  person.age  ; 
and  his  Tragedy,  of  the  poisoned  Father,  poisoned  asleep 
by  drops  in  his  ear,  and  the  rest,  is  a  xNorse  mythus !  Old 
Saxo,  as  his  wont  was,  made  it  a  Danish  history  ;  Shaks- 
peare,  out  of  Saxo,  made  it  what  we  see.  That  is  a  twig 
of  the  world-tree  that  has  ^vvti-//,  I  think;  -by  nature  or 
accident  that  one  has  grown  !  30 


\i 


.1  ., 


m^  -^ 

^ 

^ 


'  H'  11=  IP  Cauldron  J  !!•  \\-  \V  tamed  down 

^  11'  H-  ll^Thundergod 

*  <  IP  W  IP  Chil.if  Etitt  in  the  .Scottish  IJallads  is  a  Xorse  mythus; 
l:tiH  was  a  Jotuii. 


m 


l:i 


■1 

'i 

1 

''i 

1   S 

|;     iV 

I 


42 


LECTURES   OX  HEROES 


In  fact,  these  old  Norse  songs  have  a  ///////  in  them,  an 
inward  perennial  truth  and  greatness,  —  as,  indeed,  all 
must  have  that  can  very  long  preserve  itself  by  tradition 
alone.  It  is  a  greatness  not  of  mere  body  and  gigantic 
bulk,  but  a  rude  greatness  of  soul.  There  is  a  sublime 
uncomplaining  melancholy  traceable  in  these  old  hearts. 
A  great  free  glance  into  the  very  deeps  of  thought.  They 
seem  to  have  seen,  these  brave  old  Northmen,  what  medi- 
tation has  taught  all  men  in  all  ages.  That  this  world  is 
lo  after  all  but  a  show,'  —  a  phenomenon  or  appearance,  no 
real  thing.  All  deep  souls  see  into  that,  -the  Hindoo 
Mythologist,  the  (lerman  Philosopher,  —  the  Shakspeare, 
the  earnest  Thinker,  wherever  he  may  be : 

'  We  are  such  stuff  as  Dreams  are  made  of ! ' 

One  of  Thor's  expeditions,  to  Utgard  (the  (9// /tv- Garden, 
central  seat  of  Jotun-land),  is  remarkable  in  this  respect. 
Thialfi  was  with  him,  and  Loke.  After  various  adventures, 
they  entered  upon  Giant-land  ;  wandered  over  plains,  wild 
uncultivated  places,  among  stones  and  trees.     At  nightfall 

20  they  noticed  a  house  ;  and  as  the  door,  which  indeed  formed 
one  whole  side  of  the  house,  was  open,  they  entered.  It 
was  a  simple  habitation ;  one  large  hall,  altogether  empty. 
They  stayed '■'  there.  Suddenly  in  the  dead  of  the  night  loud 
noises  alarmed  them.  Thor  grasped  his  hammer;  stood  in 
the  door,  prepared  for  fight.  His  companions  within  ran 
hither  and  thitlier  in  their  terror,  seeking  some  outlet  in 
that  rude  hall ;  they  found  a  little  closet  at  last,  and  took 
refuge  there.  Neither  had  Thor  any  battle :  for,  lo,  in 
the  morning  it  turned-out*  that  the  noise  l.id  been  only 

30  the  sHori/if^  of  a  certain  enormous  but  peaceable  Giant,  the 
Giant  Skrymir,  who  lay  peaceably  sleeping  near  by ;  and 

»  il'  IIMl^shew  -  11'  ll^staiil   Unstayed 

'  H'  11==  H'  turned  out 


TJiK  ih-:ko  as  D/y/jv//y 


43 


this  thai  they  took  for  a  h(jusc  was  merely  his  G/otc,  thrown 
aside  there  ;  the  door  was  tliu  (ilove-wrist ;  the  little  closet 
they  had  Hed  into  was  the    Thumb!     Such  a  glove ;  — I 
remark  too  that  it  'lad  not  tin-ers  as  ours  have,  but  only  a 
thumb,  and  the  •  ct  ujuiivld^^d :  a  most  ancient,  rustic  glove  ! 
Skrymir  no-    carried   thc.r   portmanteau  all  day;  Thor, 
however,  had    .is  own  suspi  :ions,  did  not  like  the  ways  of 
Skrymir;  deter... .t.^d  ^i   n'"ght  to  put  an  end  to  him  as  he 
slept     Raising  his  hammer,  he  struck  down  into  the  Giant's 
face  a  right  thunderbolt  blow,  of  force  to  rend  rocks.     The  lo 
Giant  merely  awoke;  rubbed  his  check,  and  said.   Did  a 
leaf  fall  ?     Again  Thor  struck,  so  soon  as  Skrymir  again 
slept;  a  better  blow  than  before;  but  the  Giant  only  mur- 
mured, Was  that  a  grain  of  sand  ?      Thor's  third  stroke  was 
with  both  his  hands  (the  'knuckles  white  '  I  suppose),  and 
seemed  to  dint  deep  into  Skrymir's  visage  ;  but  he  merely 
checked  his  snore,  and  remarked.   There  must  be  sparrows 
roosting  in  this  tree,  I  think  ;  what  is  that  they  have  dropt  ? 
—  At  the  gate  of  Utgard,  a  place  so  higli  that  you  had 
to   'strain  your  neck  bending  back  to  see  the  top  of  it,'  20 
Skrymir  went  his  ways.      Thor  and  his  companions  were 
admitted  ;   invited  to  take  share  in  the  games  going  on. 
To  Thor,  for  his  part,   they  handed  a   Drinking-horn;   it 
was  a  common  feat,  they  told  him,  to  drink  this  dry  at  one 
draught.    Long  and  fiercely,  three  times  over,   Thor  drank; 
but  made  hardly  any  impression.      He  was  a  weak  child, 
they  told  him  :  could  he  lift  that  ("at  he  saw  there  ?     Small 
as  the  feat  seemed,   Thor  with   his  whole  godlike  strength 
could  not ;  he  bent-up'  the  creature's  back,  could  nf)t  raise 
its  feet  off  the  ground,  could  at  the  utmost  raise  one  foot.  30 
Why,  you  are  no  man,  said  the  Utgard  people  ;   there  is  an 
f  )ld  Woman  that  will  wrestle  you  !     Thor,  heartily  ashamed, 
seized  this  haggard  Old  Woman  ;  but  cuuld  not  ihrow  her.' 
>  H'  IF  H^  bent  up 


i\ 


•^■t"'Hl 


1 1; 


44 


LECTURES  OX  HEROES 


And  now,  on  their  quitting  Utgard,  the  chief  Jotun, 
escor'ing  them  politely  a  little  way,  said  to  Thor:  "You 
are  beaten  then  :  —  yet  be  not  so  much  ashamed  ;  there  was 
deception  of  appearance  in  it.  That  Horn  you  tried  to 
drink  was  the  Sea ;  you  did  make  it  ebb  ;  but  who  could  dr.nk 
that,  the  bottomless  !  The  Cat  you  would  have  lifted,  —why, 
that  is  the  Mids^ard-snakc,  the  Great  World-serpent,  which, 
tail  in  mouth,  girds  and  keeps-up*  the  whole  created  world; 
had  you  torn  that  up,  the  world  must  have  rushed  to  ruin ! 

10  As  for  the  Old  Woman,  she  was  Thne,  Old  Age,  Duration  : 
with  her  what  can  wrestle  ?  No  man  nor  no  god  with  her  ; 
gods  or  men,  she  prevails  over  all !  And  then  those  three 
strokes  you  struck,  —  look  at  these ///m- T'«//fj.f ;  your  three 
strokes  made  these  !  "  Thor  looked  at  his  attendant  Jotun  : 
it  was  Skrymir;  it  was,  say  Norse  critics,  the  old  chaotic 
rocky  Earth  in  person,  and  that  glove-Zw/ziV  was  some 
Earth-cavern!  But  Skrymir  had  vanished;  Utgard  with 
its  skyhigh  gates,  when  Thor  grasped  his  hammer  to  smite 
them,  had  gone  to  air ;  only  the  Giant's  voice  was  heard 

20  mocking :   "  Better  come  no  more  to  Jotunheim  !  " — 

This  is  of  the  allegoric  period,  as  we  see,  and  half  play, 
not  of  the  prophetic  and  entirely  devout :  but  as  a  mythus 
is  there  not  real  antique  Xorse  gold  in  it  ?  More  true 
metal,  rough  from  the  Mimer-stithy,  than  in  many  a  famed 
Greek  Mythus  shaped  far  better  !  A  great  broad  Brobdig- 
nag  grin  of  true  humour  is  in  this  Skrymir;  mirth  resting 
on  earnestness  and  sadness,  as  the  rainbow  on  black  tem- 
pest :  only  a  right  valiant  heart  is  capable  of  that.  It  is 
the  srrim   humour  of  our  own   ISen   Jonson,  rare  old   Ben  ; 

30  runs  in  the  blood  of  us,  I  fancy :  for  one  catches  tones  of 

t  of  the  American   Back- 


it,  under  a  still  other 
woods. 


ipe. 


i 


That  is  also  a  very  striking  conception  that  of  the  Kag 
1  11'  H^  11' keeps  up 


THE   HERO  AS  DIVINITY 


45 


narok,  (  onsummation,  or  'Iwiliglit  of  the  Gods.  It  is  in  the 
Voluspa  '  Song  ;  seemingly  a  very  old,  prophetic  idea.  The 
Gods  and  Jotuns,  the  divine  I'owers  and  the  chaotic  brute 
ones,  after  long  contest  and  partial  victory  by  the  former, 
meet  at  last  in  universal  world-embracing  wrestle  and  duel  ; 
World-serpent  against  Thor,  strength  against  strength ; 
mutually  extinctive  ;  and  ruin,  'twilight '  sinking  into  dark- 
ness, swallows  the  created  Universe.  The  old  Universe 
with  its  Gods  is  sunk;  but  it  is  not  final  death  :  there  is  to 
be  a  new  Heaven  and  a  new  Karth  ;  a  higher  supreme  (iod,  ic 
and  Justice  to  reign  among  men.  Curious:  this  law  of 
mutation,  which  also  is  a  law  written  in  man's  inmost 
thought,  had  been  deciphered  by  these  old  earnest  Thinkers 
in  their  rude  style ;  and  how,  though  all  dies,  and  even 
gods  die,  yet  all  death  is  but  a  phcenix  -  tire-deaih,  and 
new-birth  into  the  Greater  and  the  Better!  It  is  the  fun- 
damental Law  of  Being  for  a  creature  made  of  lime,  living 
in  this  Place  of  Hope.  All  earnest  men  have  seen  into  it ; 
may  still  see  into  it. 

And  now    -  .nnected  with  this,  let  us  glance  at  the  last  20 
mythus  oi  tearance  of  Thor  ;  and  end  there.      I  fancy 

it  to  be  the  a  in  date  of  all  these  fables  ;  a  sorrowinijr 

protest  against  the  advance  of  Christianity,  -set  forth 
reproachfully  by  some  Conservative  Pagan.  King  Olaf 
has  been  harshly  blamed  for  his  over-zeal  in  introducing 
Christianity;  surely  I  should  have  blamed  him  far  more 
for  an  under-zeal  in  that !  He  paid  dear  enough  for  it ; 
he  died  by  the  revolt  of  his  I'agan  people,  in  battle,  in  the 
year  1033,  .-  -'cickelstad,  near  that  Drontiieim,  where  the 
chief  Cathedral  of  the  North  has  now  .stood  for  many  cen-  3c 
turie-s,  dedicated  gratefully  to  his  memory  as  Saint  Olaf. 
The  mythus  about  Thor  is  to  this  effect.  King  Olaf,  the 
Christian  Reform  King,  is  sailing  with  fit  escort  along  the 

1  11'  11=  IP  Ilavamal  2  IP  IV  W  riiccnix 


i    '■■ 


I  n 


46 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


fA'^' 


shore  of  Norway,  from  haven  to  haven  ;  dispensinjj  justice, 
or  doinj5  other  royal  work  :  on  leaving  a  certain  haven,  it 
is  found  that  a  stranger,  of  grave  eyes  and  aspect,  red 
beard,  of  stately  robust  figure,  has  stept  in.  The  courtiers 
address  him  ;  his  answers  surprise  by  their  pertinency  and 
depth  :  at  length  he  is  brought  to  the  King.  The  stranger's 
conversation  here  is  not  less  remarkable,  as  they  sail  along 
the  beautiful  shore ;  but  after  some  time,  he  addresses 
King  Olaf  thus:   "Yes,  King  Olaf,  it  is  all  beautiful,  with 

10  the  sun  shining  on  it  there ;  green,  fruitful,  a  right  fair 
home  for  you;  and  mary  a  sore  day  had  Thor,  many  a 
wild  fight  with  the  rock  Jotuns,  before  he  could  make  it  so. 
And  now  you  seem  minded  to  put  away  Thor.  King  Olaf, 
have  a  care  !  "  said  the  stranger,  drawing-dov.n  *  his  brows  ; 
—  and  when  they  looked  again,  he  was  nowhere  to  be 
found.  —  This  is  the  last  appearance  of  Thor  on  the  stage 
of  this  world  ! 

Do  we  not  see  well  enough  how  the  Fable  might  arise, 
without  unveracity  on  the  part  of  any  one  t     It  is  the  way 

20  most  (iods  have  come  to  appear  among  men  :  thus,  if  in 
Pindar's  time  '  Neptune  was  once  seen  at  the  Nemean 
Games,'  what  was  this  Neptune  too  but  a  '  stranger  of  noble 
grave  aspect,' — fit  to  be  'seen'!  I'liere  is  something 
pathetic,  tragic  f(>r  me  in  this  last  voice  of  Paganism. 
Thor  is  vanished,  the  whole  Norse  world  has  vanished  ; 
and  will  not  return  ever  again.  In  like  fashion  to  that  pass 
away  the  highest  things.  All  things  that  have  been  in 
this  world,  all  things  that  are  or  will  be  in  it,  have  to  van- 
ish :   we  have  our  sad  farewell  to  give  them. 

30  That  Norse  Religion,  a  rude  but  earnest,  sternly  impres- 
sive Consecration  of  Valour  (so  we  may  define  it),  sufficed 
for  these  old  valiant  Northmen.  Consecration  of  Valour 
is  not  a  bad  thing !     Wo  will  take  it  for  good,  so  far  as  it 


II'  W  IF  drawing  down 


THE   IIEKO   AS  DIVINITY 


47 


goes.  Neither  is  there  no  use  in  knowing  something  about 
this  old  Paganism  of  our  Fathers.  Unconsciously,  and 
combined  with  higher  things,  it  is  in  us  yet,  that  old  Faith 
withal  !  To  know  it  consciously,  brings  us  into  closer  and 
clearer  relation  with  the  Past,  —  with  our  own  possessions 
in  the  Past.  For  the  whole  Past,  as  I  ke»  ,j  repeating,  is 
the  possession  of  the  Present ;  the  Past  had  always  some- 
thing tnu\  and  is  a  precious  possession.  In  a  different 
time,  in  a  different  place,  it  is  always  some  other  side  of 
our  common  Human  Nature  that  has  been  developing  'c 
itself.  The  actual  True  is  the  sum  of  all  these ;  not  any 
one  of  them  by  itself  constitutes  what  of  Human  Nature  is 
hitherto  developed.  Better  to  know  them  all  than  misknow 
them.  "  To  which  of  these  Three  Religions  do  you  spe- 
cially adhere  ?  "  inquires  Meister  of  his  Teacher.  "  To  all 
the  Three !  "  answers  the  other :  "  To  all  the  Three ;  for 
they  by  their  union  first  constitute  the  True  Religion." 


ii 


\  r 


LKCTURK    [l 


TUK    UKRO    AS    I'ROIMIKI'. 


MAiioMr.r:   islam 


[Friday,  8th  May  1.S40.]  ' 

From  the  first  rude  times  of  I'aganism  among  the  Scan- 
dinavians in  the  North,  we  advance  to  a  verv  different 
epoch  of  religion,  among  a  very  ditierent  people:  Mahom- 
etanism  among  the  Arabs.  A  great  change  ;  what  a  change 
and  progress  is  indicated  here,  in  the  universal  condition 
and  thoughts  of  men  ! 

The  Hero  is  not  now  regarded  as  a  God  among  his  fel- 
low-men ;  but  as  one  God-inspired,  as  a  Prophet.  It  is  the 
second  phasis  of  Hero-worship :  the  first  or  oldest,  we 
10  may  say,  has  passed  away  without  return  ;  in  the  history 
of  the  world  there  will  not  again  be  any  man,  never  so 
great,  whom  his  fellow-men  will  take  for  a  god.  Nay  we 
might  rationally  ask,  Did  any  set  of  human  beings  ever 
really  think  the  man  they  sa-to  there  standing  beside  them 
a  god,  the  maker  of  this  world  .'  Perhaps  not ;  it  was 
usually  some  man  they  remembered,  or  had  seen.  Hut 
neither  can  this"  any  more"  be.  The  Great  Man  is  not 
recognised  henceforth  as  a  god  any  more. 

It  was  a  rude  gross  error,  that  of  counting  the  (ireat 

20  Man  a  god.     Yet  let  us  say  that  it  is  at  all  times  difficult  to 

know  7i<hat  he  is,  or  how  to  account   of  him  and  receive 

him  !      The  most  significant  feature  in  the   history  of   an 

epoch  is  the  manner  it  has  of  welcoming   a  Great   Man. 


V 


V 


1  11'  H'  W  dale  ahmr  till,- 


211'  IP  IP  this,  anymore. 


48 


THE   Iff: NO   AS   Ph'OrifET 


49 


Ever,  to  the  true  instincts  of  men,  there  is  something  god- 
like in  him.  Whether  they  shall  take  him  to  he  a  god,  to 
be  a  prophet,  or  what  they  shall  take  lum  to  l)e  ?  that  is 
ever  a  grand  (piestion  ;  by  their  way  of  answering  that,  we 
shall  see,  as  through  a  little  window,  into  the  very  heart  of 
these  men's  spiritual  condition,  lor  at  bottom  tlie  (Ireat 
Man,  as  he  jomes  from  tlie  hand  of  Nature,  is  ever  th'; 
same  kind  of  thing:  Odin,  I.uther,  Johnson,  IJurns ;  I 
hope  to  make  it  appear  that  these  are  all  originally  of  one 
stuff  ;  that  only  by  the  world's  reception  of  them,  and  the  ic 
shapes  they  assume,  are  they  so  immeasurably  diverse. 
The  worship  of  Odin  astonishes  us, — to  fall  prostrate 
before  the  Great  Man,  into  iLliqitium  of  love  and  wonder 
over  him,  and  feel  in  their  hearts  that  he  was  a  denizen  of 
the  skies,  a  god  !  This  was  imperfect  enough  :  but  to  wel- 
come, for  example,  a  Burns  as  we  did,  was  that  what  we 
can  call  perfect .'  The  most  precious  gift  that  Heaven  can 
give  to  the  Earth;  a  man  of  'genius'  as  we  call  it;  the 
Soul  of  a  Man.  actually  sent  down  from  the  skies  with  a 
God's-message TO  us,  —  this  we  waste  away  as  an  idle  arti-  20 
ficial  firework,  sent  to  amuse  us  a  little,  and  sink  it  into 
ashes,  wreck  and  ineffectuality :  such  reception  of  a  Great 
Man  I  do  not  call  very  perfect '  either  !  Looking  into  the 
heart  of  the  thing,  one  may  perhaps  call  that  of  lJurns  a 
still  uglier  phenomenon,  betokening  still  sadder  imperfec- 
tions in  mankind's  ways,  than  the  .Scandinavian  method 
itself !  To  fall  into  mere  unreasoning  delitjiiium  of  love 
and  admiration,  was  not  good  ;  but  such  unreasoning,  nay 
irrational  supercilious  no-love  at  all  is  perhaps  still  worse ! 
—  It  is  a  thing  forever  changing,  this  of  Hero-worship:  3c 
different  in  each  age,  difficult  to  do  well  in  any  age.  Indeed, 
the  heart  of  the  whole  business  of  the  age,  one  may  say,  is 
to  do  it  well. 

'  H'  IP  I  all  perfect      11'  call  very  perfect 


1 


I 


% 


50 


LECTURES  OX  HEROES 


VN'c  have  chosen  Mahomet  not  as  the  most  eminent 
Prophet ;  but  as  the  or  we  are  freest  to  speak  of.  He  is  by 
no  means  the  truest  of  I'rophets ;  but  I  do  esteem  him  a 
true  one.  Farther,  as  there  is  no  danjjtr  of  our  becominj^, 
any  of  us,  Mahometans,  I  mean  to  say  all  the  good  of  him 
I  justly  can.  It  is  the  way  to  <jet  at  his  secret:  let  us 
try  to  understand  what  he  meant  with  the  world  ;  what 
the  world  meant  and  means  with  him,  will  then  be  a 
more  answerable  question.     Our  current  hypothesis  about 

10  Mahomet,  that  he  was  a  scheming  Impostor,  a  Falsehood 
incarnate,  that  his  religion  is  a  mere  mass  of  quackery  and 

*  fatuity,  begins  really  to  be  now  untenable  to  any  one.  The 
lies,  which  well-meaning  zeal  has  heaped  round  this  man, 
are  disgraceful  to  ourselves  only.  When  Pococke  inquired 
of  (Irotius,  Where  the  proof  was  of  that  story  of  the  pigeon, 
trained  to  pick  peas  from  Mahomet's  ear,  and  pass  for  an 
ano-el  dictatin<£  to  him  ?  Grotius  answered  that  there  was 
no  proof !  It  is  really  time  to  dismiss  all  that.  The  word 
this  man  spoke  has  been  the  life-guidance  now  of  a  hundred- 

20  and-eighty '  millions  of  men  these  twelve-hundred"  years.- 
These  hundred-and-eighty  millions  were  made  by  God  as 
well  as  we.  A  greater  number  of  God's  creatures  believe 
in  Mahomt-f  s  word  at  this  hour  than  in  any  other  word 
whatever.  .\rc  we  to  suppose  that  it  was  a  miserable  piece 
of  spiritual  legerdemain,  this  which  so  many  creatures  of 
the  Almighty  have  lived  by  and  died  by  ?  I,  for  my  part, 
cannot  form  any  such  supposition.  I  will  believe  most 
things  sooner  than  that.  One  would  be  entirely  at  a  loss 
*hat  to  think  of  this  world  at  all,  if  quackery  so  grew  and 
JO  wcf*'  sanctioned  here. 

Ala*    such  theories  are  very  lamentable.     If  we  would 
attain  to  Knowledge  of  anything  in  God's  true  Creation,  lei 
us  disbelieve  them  wholly!     They  are  the  product  of  an 
>  H'  H'  H'  hundred  and  eighty         -  11'  II'  IF  twelve  hundred 


Till.  iiEKo  AS  rnoriiiyr 


51 


Age  of  Scepticism  ;  they '  indiciitc  the  siuUicsl  spiritual 
paralysis,  and  mere  death-life  of  the  souls  of  men  :  more 
godless  theory,  I  think,  was  never  promulgated  in  this 
Karth.  A  false  man  found  a  religion  ?  Why,  a  false  man 
cannot  build  a  brick  house  !  If  he  do  not  know  and  follow 
tritly  the  properties  of  mortar,  burnt  clay  and  wIkxI  else  he 
works  in,  it  is  no  house  that  he  makes,  but  a  rubbish-heap. 
It  will  not  stand  for  twelve  centuries,  to  lod;;e  a  hundred- 
and-eighty-  millions;  it  will  fall  strai-^htway.  A  man  must 
conform  himself  to  Nature's  laws.  A-  verily  in  connnunion  lo 
with  Nature  and  the  truth  of  thinj^s,  or  Nature  will  answer 
him,  No,  not  at  all!  Speciosities  are  specious  -  ah  me! 
—  a  C'agliostro,  many  Cagliostros,  prominent  world-leaders, 
do  prosper  by  their  cpiackery,  for  a  day.  It  is  like  a  forged 
bank-note  ;  they  get  it  passed  out  of  ///(V/  worthless  hands: 
others,  not  they,  have  to  smart  for  it.  Nature  bursts-up''  in 
fire-flames,  French  Revolutions  and  suchlike,^  proclaiming 
with  terrible  veracity  that  forged  notes  are  forged. 

But  of  a  (ireat  Man  especially,  of  him  I  will  venture  to 
assert  that  it  is  incredible  he  should  have  been  other  than  20 
true.     It  seems  to  me  the  primary  foundation  of  him,  and 
of  all  that  can  lie  in  him,  this.      No  Mirabeau,  Napoleon, 
Burns,  Cromwell,  no  man  adequate  to  do  anything,  but  is 
hrst  of  all  in  ri.,iit  earnest  about  it;  what  I  call  a  sincere 
man.      I  should  say  sincerity,  a  deep,  great,  genuine  sincTfr^  ^ 
ity,  is  the  first  characteristic  of  all  men  in  any  way  heroic,  j 
Not  the  sincerity  that  calls  itself  sincere;  ah  no,  that  is  a' 
very  poor  matter  indeed  ; —a  shallow  br.aggart  conscious' 
sincerity;  oftenest  self-conceit  mainly.     The  (Ireat   Man's 
sincerity  is  of  the  kind  he  cannot  speak  of,  is  not  conscious  3° 
of:  nay,  I  suppose,  he  is  conscious  rather  of  ///sincerity; 
for  what  man  can  walk  accurately  by  the  law  of  truth  for 


Pi^   A 


i«<.///;H'.     IP  HMhey 

2  H"  II'  IP  hundred  and  eighty 


'  IP  H=  H'  bursts  up 
<  H'  W  IP  such  like 


■■■ 


1, 1 


'^'•ri .  I 


52 


LECTL'KES  OX  IH.KOF.S 


one  day  ?     No,  the  (ireat   Man  does  not  boast  iiimself  sin- 

I  cere,  far  from  that ;  perha|)s  does  not  ask  himself  if  he  is 
so  :   I  would  say  rather,  his  sincerity  does  not  depend  on 

/  himself;  he  cannot  help  bLin<;  sincere!  The  j;reat  Fact  of 
Kxistence  is  jjreat  to  him.  i'ly  as  he  will,  he  cannot  get 
out  of  the  awful  presence  of  this  Reality.      His  mind  is  so 

I    made  ;  he  is  jjreat  by  that,  first  of  all.      Fearful  and  won- 

I   derful,  real  as  F-ife,  real  as   Death,  is  this  Universe  to  h\m. 

Though  all  men  shou'd  forget  its  truth,  and  walk  in  a  vain 

lo  show,  he  cann(»t.     At  all  moments  the  Flame-ima^e  glares- 

J   in'  upon  him;  undeniable,  there,  there!  —  I  wish  you  to 

/  take   this  as  my  primary  definition   of  a  Great    Man.     A 

,  little  man  may  have  this,  it  is  competent  to  all  men  that 

(Jod  has  made;  but  a  (Ireat  Man  cannot  be  without  it. 

Such  a  man  is  what  we  call  an  ori^iiiii/  man  ;  he  comes 
to  us  at  first-hand."  A  messenger  he,  seht  from  the  Infinite 
Unknov,  i  with  tidings  to  us.  We  may  call  him  I'oet, 
I'ropliiit,  (od  ;  —  in  one  way  or  other,  we  all  feel  that  the 
words  he  utters  are  as  no  other  man's  word.s.     Direct  from 

.:o  the  Inner  Fact  of  things;  —  he  lives,  and  has  to  live,  in 
daily  communion  with  that.  Hearsays  cannot  hide  it  from 
him;  he  is  blind,  homeless,  miserable,  following  hearsays; 
//  glares-in  "  upon  him.  Really  his  utterances,  are  they  not 
a  kind  of  'revelation  ;'  —  what  we  must  call  such  for  want 
of  some  other  name  ?  It  is  from  the  heart  of  the  world 
that  he  comes  ;  he  is  portion  of  the  primal  reality  of  things. 
God  has  made  many  revelations :  but  this  man  too,  has 
not  God  made  him,  the  latest  and  newest  of  all  ?  The 
'inspiration  of  the  Almighty  giveth  /lim  understanding:' 

30  we  must  listen  before  all  to  him. 

This  Mahomet,  then,  we  will  in  no  wise  consider  as  an 
Inanity    and     Theatricality,    a   poor    conscious    ambitious 

»  H'  11=  H' glares  in     M  I' 11=  H>  first  hand     'i  II' H' H^  glares  in 


W^. 


\      ■    tf 


THE  nh.Ko  AS  rh'o /'///■:/' 


VI 


schemer;  \vi:  cannot  conceive  him  so.  The  riule  message 
he  delivered  was  .a  real  one  withal  ;  an  earnest  confused 
voice  from  the  unknown  Deep.  The  man's  words  were  not 
false,  nor  his  workinjjs  here  below  ;  no  Inanity  and  Simula- 
crum ;  a  fiery  mass  of  F,ife  cast-up'  from  the  j;reat  bosom  of 
Nature  herself.  To  kin,//,-  the  world;  the  world's  Maker 
had  ordered  it  so.  Neither  can  the  faults,  imperfections, 
insincerities  even,  of  Mahomet,  if  such  were  never  so  well 
proved  against  him,  shake  this  ,,rimary  fact  about  him. 

On  the  whole,  we  make  too  much  of  £4n,lts ;  the  details  lo 
of  the  business  hide  the  real  centre  of  it.  Faults?  The 
greatest  of  faults,  I  should  say,  is  to  be  conscious  of  none. 
Readers  of  the  Hible  above  all,  one  would  think,  might 
know  bett'-'r.  Who  is  called  there  'the  man  according  to 
(lod's  own  heart'?  David,  the  Hei)rew  Kia;;,  had  fallen 
into  sins  enough;  blackest  crimes;  there  was  no  want  (»f 
sins.  And  thereupon  the  unl)elievers  sneer  and  ask,  Is  this 
your  man  according  to  (lod's  heart?  The  sneer,  I  must 
say,  seems  to  me  but  a  shallow  one.  What  are  faults,  what 
are  the  outward  details  of  a  life;  if  theTnner  secret  "of  it,  2a 
the  remorse,  "temptations,  true,  often-baflled,  never-ended 
struggle  of  it,  be  forgotten  ?  '  It  is  not  in  man  that  walketii 
to  direct  his  steps.'  Of  all  acts,  is  not,  for  a  man,  y.-peitUvhc 
the  most  divine  ?  The  deadliest  sin,  I  say,  were  that  same 
supercilious  consciousness  of  no  sin  ;  that  is  death  ;  the 
heart  so  conscious  is  divorced  from  sincerity,  humility  and 
fact ;  is  dead  :  it  is  '  pure  '  as  dead  dry  sand  is  pure.  I  )avid's 
life  and  history,  as  written  for  us  in  those  Psalms  of  his,  I 
consider  to  be  the  truest  emblem  ever  given  of  a  man's  moral 
progress  and  warfare  here  below.  All  earnest  souls  will  jc 
ever  discern  in  it  the  faithful  struggle  of  an  earnest  human 
soul  toward.s  what  is  good  and  best.  Struggle  often  baftled, 
sore  baffled,  down  as  into  entire  wreck  ;  yet  a  struggle  never 

Mf  11=  IP  cast  up 


/I 


s» 


/./urtK'f'S  ox  m-.h'ois 


ended ;  ever,  with  tears,  re|>entance,  true  iinct>n(|ucral)]e 
purpose,  he};un  anew.  Poor  human  nature  !  Is  not  a  man's 
walkinj;,  in  truth,  always  that:  'a  succession  of  falls'?  Man 
can  do  no  other.  In  this  wild  element  of  a  Life,  he  has  to 
struj;gle  onwards  ;  now  fallen,  deep-abased  ;  and  ever,  with 
tears,  repentance,  with  bleedin;;  heart,  he  has  to  rise  again, 
struggle  again  still  onwards.  I'hat  his  struggle  l>c  a  faithful 
unconquerable  one  :  that  is  the  cpiestion  of  questions.  We 
will  put-up '  with  many  sad  details,  if  the  soul  of  it  were 
lo  true.  Details  by  themselves  will  never  teach  us  what  it  is. 
I  believe  we  misestimate-  Mahomet's  faults  even  as  faults; 
but  the  secret  of  him  will  never  be  got  by  dwelling  there. 
We  will  leave  all  this  behind  us;  and  assuring  ourselves 
that  he  did  mean  some  true  thing,  ask  candidly  what  it  was 
or  might  be. 


\i 


v^S 


i 


These  .Vrabs  Mahomet  was  born  among  arc  certainly  a 
notable  peo])le.  I'heir  country  itself  is  notable;  the  fit 
habitation  for  such  a  race.  Savage  inaccessible  rock-moun- 
tains, great  grim  deserts,  alternating  with  beautiful  strips 

20  of  verdure:  wherever  water  is,  there  is  greenness,  beauty; 
odoriferous  balm-shrubs,  date-trees,  frankincense-trees.  Con- 
sider that  wide  waste  horizon  of  sand,  empty,  silent,  like  a 
sand-sea,  dividing  habitable  place  from  habitable.  You  are 
all  alone'there,  left  alone  with  the  Tniverse  ;  by  day  a  fierce 
sun  blazing  down  on  it  with  intolerable  radiance ;  by 
night  the  great  deeji  Heaven  with  its  stars.  Such  a  country 
is  fit  for  a  swift-handed,  deei^-Iiearted  race  of  men.  There 
is  something  most  agile,  active,  and  yet  most  meditative, 
enthusiastic    in    the    Aral)    character.     The    Persians    are 

30  called  the  French  of  the  Fast ;  we  will  call  the  Arabs 
Oriental  Italiatis.  A  :;iftLil  iiiibic  pciiplc;  a  people  of  wild 
strong  feelings,  and  of  iron  restraint  over  these :  the  char- 

»  H'  H»  W  put  up  a  H'  mis-estimate 


■\ 


/■///     HI  hit   AS    /'Ai'/'Z/f-:/' 


5.< 


.icteristic  of  nohlcmindfdness,  ui  Kcnius.  The  wild  Itedotiin 
welcomes  the  .stranger  to  his  tent,  .is  one  having  ri^^ht  lo  all 
that  is  there;  were  it  his  worst  enemy,  he  will  sUy  his  foal 
to  treat  him,  will  serve  him  with  sacred  hospitality  for  three 
days,  will  set  him  fairly  on  his  way  ;  -and  then,  by  another 
law  as  sacred,  kill  him  if  he  can.  In  words  too,  as  in 
action.  They  are  not  a  Nniuacious  |)eo|)le,  taciturn  rather ; 
but  eloquent,  gifted  when  they  do  speak.  An  earnest, 
truthful  kind  of  mun.  Ilu;y  are,  as  we  know,  of  Jewish 
kindred  :  but  with  that  deadly  terrible  earnestness  of  the  lo 
lews  they  seem  to  combine  something  graceful,  brilliant, 
which  is  not  Jewish.  I  hey  had  '  I'oetic  contests  '  among 
them  before  the  time  of  .Mahomet.  .Sale  says,  at  Ocadh,  in 
the  South  of  .Arabia,  there  were  yearly  fairs,  and  there,  when 
the  merchandising  was  done,  I'oets  sang  for  prizes:  — the 
wild  people  gathered  to  hear  that. 

One  Jewish  quality  these  .Xrabs  manifest ;  the  outcome  of 
many  or  of  all  high  qualities :  what  we  may  call  religiosity. 
From  of  old  they  had  been  zealous  worshippers,  acc^ording 
to  their  light,      rhey  worshipped   the  stars,  as  .Sabeans ;  20 
worshipped   many  natural  objects,    ^  recognised  them  as 
symbols,  immediate  manifestations,  of  the  Maker  of  Nature. 
It  was  wrong  ;  and  yet  not  wholly  wrong.      .Ml  (iod's  works 
are  still  in  a  sense  symbols  of  (iod.     Do  we  not,  as  I  urged, 
still  account  it  a  merit  to  recognise  a  certain  inexhaustible 
significance,  'poetic  beauty  '  as  we  name  it,  in  all  natural 
objects  whatsoever  ?     A  man  is  a  poet,  and  honoured,  for 
doing  that,  and  speaking  or  singing  it,  —  a  kind  of  diluted 
worship.     They  had  many  Prophets,  these  Arabs  ;  Teachers 
each  to  his  tribe,  each  according  to  the  light  he  had.     Hut  .^0 
indeed,  have  we  not  from  of  old  the  noblest  of  proofs,  still 
palpable  to  every  one  of  us,  of  wliat  devoutness  and  noble- 
mindedness  '  had  dwelt  in  these  rustic  thoughtful  peoples  > 
MI'  nohlf-mindedness 


!f  ! 


I  t 


5    !" 


5C. 


LECTURES  OX  llEROIiS 


I 


I 


Hiblical  critics  seem  aj;;reed  that  our  own  Booi  of  Job^ 
was  written  in  that  region  of  the  world.  I  call  that,  apart 
from  all  theories  about  it,  one  of  the  grandest  things  ever 
written  with  pen.  One  feels,  indeed,  as  if  it  were  not 
Hebrew  ;  such  a  noble  universality,  different  from  noble 
patriotism  or  sectarianism,  reigns  in  it.  A  noble  Book ; 
all  men's  Book!  It  is  our  first,  oldest  statement  of  the 
never-ending  Problem,  —  man's  destiny,  and  God's  ways 
with  him  here  in  this  earth.     And  all  in  such  free  flowing 

lo  outlines ;  grand  in  its  sincerity,  in  its  simplicity ;  in  its 
epic  melody,  and  repose  of  reconcilement.  There  is  the 
seeing  eye,  the  mildly  understanding  heart.  So  true  every- 
way ;  true  eyesight  and  vision  for  all  things ;  material 
things   no    less    than   spiritual:    the    Horse,  —  'hast  thou 

I  clothed  his  neck  with  tliniuh'!  f  —  he  'laiig/is  dii  the  sl.aking 
of  the  spear!'     Such   living  likenesses  were  never   since 

/  drawn.  Sublime  sorrow,  sublime  reconciliation ;  oldest 
choral  melody  as  of  the  heart  of  mankind ;  —  so  soft,  and 
great;  as  the  summer  midnight,  as  the  world  with  its  seas 

20  and  stars  !  There  is  nothing  written»_I^  think,  in  the  Bible 
or  out  of  it,  ofequal^terary  merit.  — 

To  tTie  idolatrous  Arabsone  of  the  most  ancient  universal 
objects  of  worship  was  that  lilack  Stone,  still  kept  in  the 
buildin<r  called  C'aabah  at  Mecca.  Diodorus  Siculus  men- 
tions  this  ("aabah  in  a  way  not  to  be  mistaken,  as  the  oldest, 
most  honoured  temple  in  his  time  ;  that  is,  some  half-century 
before  our  Kra.  Silvestre  de  Sacy  says  there  is  some  likeli- 
hood that  the  Black  Stone  is  an  aerolite.  In  that  case, 
some  man  might  src  it  fall  out  of  Heaven  !     It  stands  now 

30  beside  the  Well  Zenizem  ;  the  (aabah  is  built  over  both. 
A  Well  is  in  all  places  a  beautiful  affecting  object,  gushing 
out  like  life  from  the  hard  earth  ;  —  still  more  so  in  those  - 
hot  dry  countries,  where  it  is  the  first  condition  of  being. 


I 


r# 


1  II'  11=  liook  of  Job 


2  IP  H»  these 


THE  HERO   AS  PROPHET 


57 


The  Well  Zemzem  has  its  name  from  the  bubbling  sound  of 
the  waters,  zcm-zem;  they  think  it  is  the  Well  which  Hagar 
found  with  her  little  Ishmael  in  the  wilderness :  the  aerolite 
and  it  have  been  sacred  now,  and  had  a  Caabah  over  Them, 
for  thousands  of  years.  A  curious  object,  that  Caabah  ! 
There  it  stands  at  this  hour,  in  the  black  cloth-covering 
the  Sultan  sends  it  yearly;  'twenty-seven  cubits  high;' 
with  circuit,  with  double  circuit  of  pillars,  with  festoon-rows 
of  lamps  and  quaint  ornaments :  the  lamps  will  be  lighted 
again  this  night,  —  to  glitter  again  under  the  stars.  An  lo 
authentic  fragment  of  the  oldest  Past.  It  is  the  Kcblah  of 
all  Moslem  :  from  Delhi  all  onwards  to  Morocco,  the  eyes  of 
innumerable  praying  men  are  turned  towards  //,  five  times, 
this  day  and  all  days :  one  of  the  notablest  centres  in  the 
Habitation  of  Men. 

It  had  been  from  the  sacredness  attached  to  this  Caabah 
Stone  and  Hagar's  Well,  from  the  pilgrimings  of  all  tribes 
of  Arabs  thither,  that   Mecca  took  its  rise  as  a  Town.     A 
great  town  once,  tiiough  much  decayed   now.     It  has  no  I 
natural  advantage  for  a  town;  stands  in  a  sandy  hollowirc 
amid  b^rejparren   hills,   at   a^distanc^  from  the  sea;  its' 
provisions,   its  very  bread,  have  to  be  imported.      But  so' 
many  pilgrims  needed  lodgings:  and  then  all  places  of  pil- 
grimage do,  from  the  first,  become  places  of  trade.     The 
first  day  pilgrims  meet,  merchants  have  also  met  :  where 
men  see  themselves  assembled  for  one  ol)ject,  they  find  that 
they  can  accomplish  other  objects  which  depend  on  meet- 
ing together.      Mecca  became  the  Fair  ot  all  Arabia.     And 
thereby  indeed  the  chief  staple  and  warehouse  of  whatever 
Commerce  there  was  between  the  Indian  and  the  Western  3c 
countries,  Syria,  Egypt,  even  Italy.     It  had  at  one  time  a 
population  of  100,000;  buyers,  forwarders  of  those  Eastern 
and  Western  products;  importers  for  their  own  behoof  of  pro- 
visions and  corn.     The  government  was  a  kind  of  irregular 


..ri 


n 


1^  ^ 


i 


i. '_ 
'*   ■ 


»-i 


I 

:     i 


58 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


1^ 
aristocratic  republic,  not  witiiout  a  touch  of  theocracy. 

Ten  Men  of  a  chief  tribe,  chosen  in  some  rough  way,  were 
Governors  of  Mecca,  and  Keepers  of  the  Caabah.  The 
Koreish  were  the  chief  tribe  in  Mahomet's  time ;  his  own 
family  was  of  that  tribe.  The  rest  of  the  Nation,  frac- 
.  tioned  and  cut-asunder  '  by  deserts,  lived  under  similar  rude 
patriarchal  governments  by  one  or  several :  herdsmm,  car- 
riers, traders,  generally  robbers  too;  being  oftenest  at  war'* 
one  with  another,  or  with  all:  held  together  by  no  open 

10  bond,  if  it  were  not  this  meeting  at  the  Caabah,  where  all 
forms  of  Arab  Idolatry  assembled  in  conmion  adoration  ;  — 
held  mainly  by  the  inwqrd  indissoluble  bond  of  a  common 
blood  and  language.  In  this  way  had  the  Arabs  lived  for 
long  ages,  unnoticed  by  the  world ;  a  people  of  great  quali- 
ties, unconsciously  waiting  for  the  day  when  they  should 
become  notable  to  all  the  world.  Their  Idolatries  appear 
to  have  been  in  a  tottering  state ;  much  was  getting  into 
confusion  and  fermentation  among  them.  Obscure  tidings 
of  the  most  important  Event  ever  transacted  in  this  world, 

20  the  Life  and  Death  of  the  Divine  Man  in  Judea,  at  once 
the  symptom  and  cause  of  immeasurable  change  to  all 
people  in  the  world,  had  in  the  course  of  centuries  reached 
into  Arabia  too  ;  and  could  not  but,  of  itself,  have  produced 
fermentation  there. 

It  was  among  this  Arab  people,  so  circumstanced,  in  the 
year  570  of  our  Kra,  that  the  man  Mahomet  was  born.  He 
was  of  the  family  of  Hashem,  of  the  Koreish  tribe  as  we 
said  ;  though  poor,  connected  with  the  chief  persons  of  his 
country.  Almost  at  his  birth  he  lost  his  Father;  at  the 
30  age  of  six  years  his  Mother  too,  a  woman  noted  for  her 
beauty,  her  worth  and  sense :  he  fell  to  the  charge  of  his 
Grandfather,  an  old  man,  a  hundred  years  old.     A  good  old 


1  H'  W  H'  cut  asunder 


2  H'  H'  IP  war, 


TfJK   HERO   AS  PKOPHET 


59 


man :  Mahomet's  Father,  Abdallah,  had  been  his  youngest 
favourite  son.  He  saw  in  Mahomet,  with  his  old  life-worn 
eyes,  a  century  old,  the  lost  Abdallah  come  back  again,  all 
that  was  left  of  Abdallah.  He  loved  the  little  orphan  Boy 
greatly  ;  used  to  say,  They  must  take  care  of  that  beautiful 
little  Boy,  nothing  in  their  kindred  was  more  precious  than 
he.  At  his  death,  while  the  boy  was  still  but  two  years 
old,  he  left  him  in  charge  to  Abu  Thaleb  the  eldest  of  the 
Uncles,  as  to  him  that  now  was  head  of  the  house.  By  this 
Uncle,  a  just  and  rational  man  as  everything  betokens,  lo 
Mahomet  was  brought-up '  in  the  best  Arab  way. 

Mahomet,  as  he  grew  up,  accompanied  his  Uncle  on 
trading  journeys  and  suchlike  **;  in  his  eighteenth  year  one 
finds  him  a  fighter  following  his  Uncle  in  war.  But  per- 
haps the  most  significant  of  all  his  jourr,  ys  is  one  we  find 
noted  as  of  some  years'  ^  earlier  date  :  a  journey  to  the  F'airs 
of  Syria.  The  young  man  here  first  came  in  contact  with 
a  quite  foreign  world,  — •  with  one  foreign  element  of  endless 
moment  to  him  :  the  Christian  Religion.  I  know  not  what 
to  make  of  that  '  Sergius,  the  Nestorian  Monk,'  whom  Abu  20 
Thaleb  and  he  are  said  to  have  lodged  with  ;  or  how  much 
any  monk  could  have  taught  one  still  so  young.  Probably 
enough  it  is  greatly  exaggerated,  this  of  the  Nestorian 
Monk.  Mahomet  was  only  fourteen  ;  had  no  language  but 
his  own :  much  in  Syria  must  have  been  a  strange  unintel- 
ligible whirlpool  to  him.  But  the  eyes  of  the  lad  were 
open  ;  glimpses  of  many  things  would  doubtless  be  taken- 
in,^  and  lie  very  enigmatic  as  yet,  which  were  to  ripen  in  a 
strange  way  into  views,  into  beliefs  and  insights  one  day. 
These  journeys  to  Syria  were  probably  the  beginning  of  30 
much  to  Mahomet. 

One  other  circumstance  we  must  not  forget :  that  he  had 


»  H"  H»  H^bro^Rht  up 
»  W  IF  IP  such  like 


■'  II'  years 

MI'  IP  IP  taken  in 


!4l 


ml 


m 


^  7 


ill 

i     I 


i 

i' . 


\\ 


u 


fl 


t  f^ 


f  t 


60 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


no  school-learning ;  of  the  thing  we  call  school-learning 
none  at  all.  The  art  of  writing  was  but  jusf  introduced 
into  Arabia  ;  it  seems  to  be  the  true  opinion  that  Mahomet 
never  could  write^  Life  in  the  Desert,  with  its  experiences, 
was  all  his  education.  What  of  this  infinite  Universe  he, 
from  his  dim  place,  with  his  own  eyes  and  thoughts,  could 
take  in,  so  much  and  no  more  of  it  was  he  to  know. 
Curious,  if  we  will  reflect  on  it,  this  of  having  no  books. 
Except  by  what  he  could  see  for  himself,  or  hear  of  by 

lo  uncertain  rumour  of  speech  in  the  obscure  Arabian  Desert, 
he  could  know  nothing.  The  wisdom  that  had  been  before 
him  or  at  a  distance  from  him  in  the  world,  was  in  a  man- 
ner as  good  as  not  there  for  him.  Of  the  great  brother 
souls,  flame-beacons  through  so  many  lands  and  times,  no 
one  directly  communicates  with  this  great  soul.  He  is 
alone  there,  deep  down  in  the  bosom  of  the  Wilderness ; 
has  to  grow  up  so, — alone  with  Nature  and  his  own 
Thoughts. 

But,  from  an  early  age,  he  had  been  remarked  as  a  thought- 

20  ful  man.  His  companions  named  him  '  Al  Amiii,  The 
Faithful.'  .A.  man  of  truth  and  fidelity  ;  true  in  what  he 
did,  in  what  he  spake  and  tho  ight.  The^jiojted  that  /ic 
always  meant  something.  A  man  rather  taciturn  in  speech  ; 
silent  when  there  was  nothing  to  be  said  ;  but  pertinent, 
wise,  sincere,  when  he  did  speak  ;  always  throwing  light 
on  the  matter.  This  is  the  only  sort  of  speech  wort/i 
speaking  !  Through  life  we  find  him  to  have  been  regarded 
as  an  altogether  solid,  brotherly,  genuine  man.  A  serious, 
sincere    character;    yet    amiable,   cordial,   companionable, 

30  jocose  even  ;  —  a  good  laugh  in  him  withal :  there  are  men 
whose  laugh  is  as  untrue  as  anything  about  them  ;  who  can- 
not laugh.  One  hears  of  Mahomet's  beauty  :  his  fine  saga- 
cious honest  face,  brown  florid  complexion,  beaming  black 
eyes ;  —  1  somehow  like  too  that  vein  'on  the  brow,  which 


THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET 


61 


swelled-upi  black  when  he  was  in  anger:  like  the  'horse- 
shoe vein  '  in  Scott's  Kc^i^imntlet.  It  was  a  kind  of  feature  in 
the  Hashem  family,  this  black  swelling  vein  in  the  brow  ; 
Mahomet  had  it  prominent,  as  would  appear.  A  sponta- 
neous, passionate,  yet  just,  true-meaning  man  !  Full  of 
wild  faculty,  fire  and  light ;  of  wild  worth,  all  uncultured  ; 
working  out  his  life-task  in  the  depths  of  the  Desert 
there. 

How  he  was  placed  with  Kadijah,  a  rich  Widow,  as  her 
Steward,  and  travelled  in  her  business,  again  to^*  the  Fairs  lo 
of  Syria  ;  how  he  managed  all,  as  one  can  well  understand, 
with  fidelity,  adroitness  ;  how  her  gratitude,  her  regard  for 
V.va.  grew  :  the  story  of  their  marriage  is  altogether  a  grace- 
ful intelligible  one,  as  told  us  by  the  Arab  authors.  He 
was  twenty-five;  she  forty,  though  still  beautiful.  He 
seems  to  have  lived  in  a  most  affectionate,  peaceable, 
wholesome  way  with  this  wedded  benefactress ;  loving  her 
truly,  and  her  alone.     It  goes  greatly  against  the  impostor 

I  theory,''  the  fact  that  he  lived  in  this  entirely  unexception- 
able, entirely  quiet  and  commonplace  way,  till  the  heat  of  20 
his  years  was  done.     He  was  forty  before  he  talked  of  any 
mission  from  Heaven.     All  his  irregularities,  real  and  sup- 
posed, date  from  after  his   fiftieth   year,   when  the  good! 
Kadijah  died.     All  his  'ambition,'  seemingly,   had  been, - 
hitherto,  to  live  an  honest  life;  his  'fame,'  the  mere  good, 
opinion <  of  neighbours  that  knew  him,  had  been  sufficient' 
hitherto.     Not  till  he  was  already  getting  old,  the  prurient 
heat  of  his  life  all  burnt  out,  and  peace  growing  to  be  the 
chief  thing  this  world  could  give  him,  did  he  start  on  the 
'career  of  ambition;'  and,  belying  all  his  past  character  30 
and  existence,  set-up*  as  a  wretched  empty  charlatan  to 

»  H'  H»  H'  swelled  up  a  H"  II'  impostor-theory 

"  H'  H»  H»  business  to  MI'  IF  IP  good-opinion 

MI'  H'  IP  set  up 


Ill 


I 


62 


LF.CTURtlS  ON  HEROES 


(1 


J'- 


|j 


acquire  what  he  could  now  no  longer  enjoy  !     For  my  share, 
I  have  no  faith  whatever  in  that. 

Ah  no  :  this  deep-hearted  Son  of  the  Wilderness,  with 
his  beaming  black  eyes  and  open  social  deep  soul,  had  other 
thoughts  in  him  than  ambition.  A  silent  great  soul ;  he 
was  one  of  those  who  cannot  hut  be  in  earnest ;  whom 
Nature  herself  has  appointed  to  be  sincere.  While  others 
walk  in  formulas  and  hearsays,  contented  enough  to  dwell 
there,  this  man  could  not  screen  himself  in  formulas ;  he 

'o  was  alone  with  his  own  soul  and  the  reality  of  things.  The 
great  Mystery  of  Existence,  as  I  said,  glared-in  *  upon  him, 
with  its  terrors,  with  its  splendours ;  no  hearsays  could 
hide  that  unspeakable  fact,  "  Here  am  I  !  "  Such  sincerity^ 
as  we  named  it,  has  in  very  truth,  something  of  divine. 
The  word  of  such  a  man  is  a  Voice  direct  from  Nature's 
own  Heart.  Men  do  and  must  listen  to  that  as  to  noth- 
ing else  ;  —  all  else  is  wind  in  comparison.  From  of  old,  a 
thousand  thoughts,  in  his  pilgrimings  and  wanderings,  had 
been  in  this  man :  What  am  I  ?     What  is  this  unfathom- 

20  able  Thing  I  live  in,  which  men  name  Universe  ?  What 
is  Life  ;  what  is  Death  ?  What  am  I  to  believe  ?  What  am 
I  to  do  ?  The  grim  rocks  of  Mount  Hara,  of  Mount  Sinai, 
the  stern  sandy  solitudes  answered  not.  The  great  Heaven 
rolling  silent  overhead,  with  its  blue-glancing  stars,  answered 
not.  There  was  no  answer.  The  man's  own  soul,  and  what 
of  God's  inspiration  dwelt  there,  had  to  answer ! 

It  is  the  thing  which  all  men  h.ave  to  ask  themselves  ; 
which  we  too  have  to  ask,  and  answer.  This  wild  man  felt 
it  to  be  of  iiijhtitc  moment ;  all  other  things  of  no  moment 

30  whatever  in  comparison.  The  jargon  of  argumentative 
Greek  Sects,  vague  traditions  of  Jews,  the  stupid  routine  of 
Arab  Idolatry:  there  was  no  answer  in  these.  .V  Hero, 
>  this  first  distinction,  which  indeed  we  may 


as 


jpeat. 


1  II'  IP  IP  glared  ii 


rilK  IlKKO   AS  PROPHET 


63 


call  first  and  last,  the  Alpha  and  Omega  of  his  whole  Hero- 
ism, That  he   looks   through    the   shows'  of   things  into 
Ihini^s.     Use   and    wont,   respectable   hearsay,  respectable 
formula:    all   these  are*  good,  or  are''  not  good.     There 
is  something  behind  and  beyond  all  these,  which  all  these 
must  correspond  with,  be  the  image  of,  or  they  are—  AA;/- 
atrics;  'bits  of  black  wood  pretending  to  be  God; '  to  the 
earnest  soul  a  mockery  and  abomination.     Idolatries  never 
so  gilded,  waited  on  by  heads  of  the  Koreish,  will  do  noth- 
ing for  this  man.      Though  all  men  walk  by  them,  what  lo 
good  is  it  ?     The  great  Reality  stands  glaring  there  upon 
him.     He  there  has  to  answer  it,  or  perish  miserably.    Now, 
even  now,  or  else  through  all   Eternity  never!     Answer  it; 
llion  must  find  an  answer.  —  Ambition  ?     What  could  all 
Arabia  do  for  this  man  ;  with  the  crown  of  (Jreek  Heraclius, 
of  Persian  Chosroes,  and  all  crowns  in  the  Earth ;  —  what 
could  they  all  do  for  him.'     It  was- not  of  the  Earth  he 
wanted  to  hear  tel      it  was  of  the  Heaven  above  and  of  the 
Hell  beneath.     All  crowns  and  sovereignties  whatsoever, 
where  would  they  in  a  few  brief  years  be  .>      To  be  Sheik  *  of  20 
Mecca  or  Arabia,  and  have  a  bit  of  gilt  wood  put  into  your 
hand,  — will  that  be  one's  salvation?     I  decidedly  think, 
not.     We  will  leave  it  altogether,  this  impostor  hypothesis,* 
as  not  credible ;  not  very  tolerable  even,  worthy  chiefiy  of 
dismissal  by  us. 

Mahomet  had  been  went  to  retire  yearly,  during  the 
month  Ramadhan,  into  s.iiitude  and  silence;  as  indeed 
was  the  Arab  custom ;  a  praiseworthy  custom,  which  such 
a  man,  above  all,  would  find  natural  and  useful.  Com- 
muning with  his  own  heart,  :n  the  silence  of  the  moun-  30 
tains ;  himself  silent ;  open  to  the  '  small  still  voices : '  it 

1  H«  W  W  shews  3  H"  W  is 

2  H'  IP  this  is  4  H'  IP  H^  Shiek 

*  H' IP  impostor-hypothesis 


^Bk 


J*' 


fl 


if' '  I 


i  :; 


II   f^ 


64 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


was  a  right  natural  custom  !  Mahomet  was  in  his  fortieth 
year,  when  havinj;  withdrawn  to  a  cavern  in  Mount  Hara, 
near  Mecca,  durinjj  this  Ram  tdhan,  to  pass  the  month 
in  prayer,  and  meditation  on  those  great  questions,  he 
one  day  told  his  wife  Kadijah,  who  with  his  household 
was  with  him  or  near  him  this  year,  That  by  the  un- 
speakable special  favour  of  Heaven  he  had  now  found  it 
all  out ;  was  in  doubt  and  darkness  no  longer,  but  saw  it 
all.     That    all    these    Idols    and    l-'ormul  is  were   nothing, 

10  miserable  bvts  of  wood  ;  that  there  was  One  God  in  and 
over  all;  and  we  must  leave  all  Idols,  and  look  to  Him. 
That  God  is  great ;  and  that  there  is  nothing  else  great ! 
He  is  the  Reality.  Wooden  Idols  are  not  real ;  He  is  real. 
He  made  us  at  first,  sustains  us  yet ;  we  and  all  things  are 
but  the  shadow  of  Him ;  a  transitory  garment  veiling  the 
Eternal  Splendour.  '■Allah  <ikluv;  God  is  great;' — and 
then  also  '  Ishvii'  That  we  must  submit  to  (iod.  That  our 
whole  strength  lies  in  resigned  submission  to  Him,  whatso- 
ever He  do  to  us.     l"'or  this  world,  and  for  the  other !     The 

20  thing  He  sends  to  us,  were  it  death  and  worse  than  death, 
shall  be  good,  shall  be  best ;  we  resign  ourselves  to  God.  — 
*  If  this  be  Jsl(vn,'  says  Goethe,  'do  we  not  all  live  in  Islam  I ' 
Yes,  all  of  us  that  have  any  moral  life ;  we  all  live  so.  It 
has  ever  been  held  the  highest  wisdom  for  a  man  not  merely 
to  submit  to  Necessity,  —  Necessity  will  make  him  submit, 
—  but  to  know  and  believe  well  that  the  stern  thing  which 
Necessity  had  ordered  was  the  wisest,  the  best,  the  thing 
wanted  there.  To  cease  his  frantic  pretension  of  scanning 
this  great  (iod's-World  in  his  small  fraction  of  a  brain;  to 

30  know  that  it  had  verily,  though  deep  beyond  his  soundings, 
a  Just  Law,  that  the  soul  of  it  was  Good ;  —that  his  part 
in  it  was  tu  conform  to  the  Law  of  the  Whole,  and  in 
devout  silence  follow  that ;  not  questioning  it,  obeying  it 
as  unquestionable. 


■      i  ^ 


THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET 


6S 


I  say,  this  is  yet  the  only  true  morality  known.  A  man 
is  right  and  invincible,  virtuous  and  on  the  road  towards 
sure  conquest,  precisely  while  he  joins  himself  to  the  great 
deep  Law  of  the  World,  in  spite  of  all  superficial  laws, 
temporary  appearances,  profit-and-loss  calculations ;  he  is 
victorious  while  he  cooperates '  with  that  great  central 
Law,  not  victorious  otherwise :  —  and  surely  his  first 
chance  of  cooperating*  with  it,  or  getting  into  the  course 
of  it,  is  to  know  with  his  whole  soul  that  it  is ;  that  it  is 
good,  and  alone  good  I  This  is  the  soul  of  Islam ;  it  is  ic 
properly  the  soul  of  Christianity  ;  —  for  Islam  is  definable 
as  a  confused  form  of  Christianity;  had  Christianity  not 
been,  neither  had  it  been.  Christianity  also  commands  us, 
before  all,  to  be  resigned  to  God.  We  are  to  take  no 
counsel  with  flesh-and-blood,"  give  ear  to  no  vain  cavils, 
vain  sorrows  and  wishes :  to  know  that  we  know  nothing ; 
that  the  worst  and  cruelest^  to  our  eyes  is  not  what  it 
seems ;  that  we  have  to  receive  whatsoever  befalls  *  us  as 
sent  from  God  above,  and  say,  It  is  good  and  wise,  God  is 
great!  "Though  He  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  in  Him."  20 
Islam  means  in  its  way  Denial  of  Self,  Annihilation  of  Self. 
This  is  yet  the  highest  Wisdom  that  Heaven  has  revealed 
to  our  Earth. 

Such  light  had  come,  as  it  could,  to  illuminate  the  dark- 
ness of  this  wild  Arab  soul.  A  confused  dazzling  splen- 
dour as  of  life  and  Heaven,  in  the  great  darkness  which 
threatened  to  be  death :  he  called  it  revelation  and  the 
angel  Gabriel ;  —  who  of  us  yet  can  know  what  to  call  it .' 
It  is  the  *  inspiration  of  the  Almighty  '  that  giveth  us  under- 
standing. To  kiunv:  to  get  into  the  truth  of  anything,  is  30 
ever  a  mystic  act,  —  of  which  the  best  Logics  can  but  babble 

»  H»  11^  H3  cooperates  »  H'  H=  W  flesh  and  blood 

2  H'  W  \V  cooperating  <  H'  IP  IP  cruellest 

6  IP  Ii«  H3  befals 


66 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


H:  il 


on  the  surface.  'Is  not  Iteiief  the  true  god-announcing 
Miracle  ? '  says  Novalis.  —That  Mahomet's  whole  soul,  set 
in  flame  with  this  grand  Truth  vouchsafed  him,  should  feel 
as  if  it  were  important  and  the  only  important  thing,  was 
very  natural.  That  Providence  had  unspeakably  honoured 
him  by  revealing  it,  saving  him  from  death  and  darkness ; 
that  he  therefore  was  bound  to  make  known  the  same  to 
all  creatures:  this  is  what  was  meant  by  'Mahomet  is 
the  Prophet  of  (Jod ; '  this   too   is   not   without    its   true 

lo  meaning.  — 

The  good  Kadijah,  we  can  fancy,  listened  to  him  with 
wonder,  with  doubt :  at  length  she  answered :  Yes,  it  was 
true  this  that  he  said.  One  can  fancy  too  the  boundless 
gratitude  of  Mahomet ;  and  how  of  all  the  kindnesses  she 
had  done  him,  this  of  believing  the  earnest  struggling  word 
he  now  spoke  was  the  greatest.  •  It  is  certain,'  says 
Novalis,  'my  Conviction  gains  infinitely,  the  moment 
another  soul  will  believe  in  it.'  It  is  a  boundless  favour. 
—  He  never  forgot  this  good  Kadijah.     Long  afterwards, 

20  Ayesha,  his  young  favourite  wife,  a  woman  who  indeed 
distinguished  herself  among  the  Moslem,  by  all  manner  of 
qualities,  through  her  whole  long  life ;  this  yr  g  brilliant 
Ayesha  was,  one  day,  questioning  him  :  "  >'  .  am  not  I 
better  than  Kadijah  ?  She  was  a  widow ;  jld,  and  had 
lost  her  looks:  you  love  me  better  than  you  did  her?"  — 
"  No,  by  Allah  !  "  answered  Mahomet :  "  No,  by  Allah  ! 
She  believed  in  me  when  none  else  would  believe.  In  the 
whole  world  I  had  but  one  friend,  and  she  was  that !  "  — 
Seid,  his  Slave,  also  'relieved  in  him ;  these  with  his  young 

30  Cousin  All,  Abu  Thaleb's  son,  were  his  first  converts. 

He  spc  of  his  Doctrine  to  this  man  and  that ;  but  the 
most  treated  it  with  ridicule,  with  indifference;  in  three 
years,  I  think,  he  had  gained  but  thirteen  followers.  His 
progress  was  slow  enougli.     His  encouragement  to  go  on, 


THR  UK  HO  AS  PKOrHET 


(>7 


was  altogether  the  usual  encourafjement  that  such  a  man 
in   such  a  case  meets.     After  some  three  years  of   small 
success,  he  invited  forty  of  his  chief  kindred  to  an  enter- 
tainment ;  and   there  stood-up '  and   told  them    what  his 
pretension   was:    that    he    had    this   thin;;   to   promulgate 
abroad  to  all  men ;  that  it  was  the  highest  thing,  the  one 
thing:  which  of  them  would  second  him  in  t'lat?     Amid 
the  doubt  and  silence  of  all,  young  Ali,  as  yet  a  lad  of  six- 
teen, impatient  of  the  silence,  started-up,-  and  exclaimed  in 
passionate  fierce  language,  Ihat  he  would  !      ihe  assembly,  lo 
among  whom  was  Abu    Thaleb,  Ali's  lather,  could  not  be 
unfriendly  to  Mahomet ;  yet  the  sight  there,  of  one  unlet- 
tered elderly  man,  with  a  lad  of  sixteen,  deciding  on  such 
an  enterprise  against  all  mankind,  appeared  ridiculous  to 
them;  the  assembly  broke-up'  in  laughter.      Nevertheless 
it  proved   not  a   laughable   thing;  it   was  a   very  serious 
thing!     As  for  this  young  Ali,  or»  cannot  but  like  him. 
A  noble-minded  creature,  as  he  sh   ws^  himself,  now  and 
always  afterwards  ;  full  of  atleotion,  of  tiery  daring.     Some- 
thing chivalrous  in  him  ;  brave  as  a  lion  ;  yet  with  a  grace,  20 
a  truth  and  affection  worthy  of  Christian  knighthood.     He 
died  by  assassination  in  the  Mosque  at   liagdad;  a  death 
occasioned  by  his  own  generous  fairness,  confidence  in  the 
fairness  of  others:   hesaid,  If  the  wound  proved  not  unto 
death,  they  must  pardon  the  Assassin  ;  but  if  it  did,  then 
they  must  slay  him  straightway,  that  so  they  two  in  the 
same  hour  might  appear  before  Cod,  and  see  which  side  of 
that  quarrel  was  the  just  one  ! 

Mahomet  naturally  gave  otTence  to  the  Koreish,  Keepers 
of  the  Caabah,  superintendents  of  the  Idols.     One  or  two  30 
men  of  influence  had  joined  him  :  the  thing  spread  slowly, 
but  it  was  spreading.      Naturally  he  gave  ofTence  to  every- 


til 


1 


'  H'  IP  IP  stood  up 
MI'  11    IP  started  up 


,  Ijl, 


3  H'  W  IPInoke  up 
MP  IP  IP. shews 


'■:^ 


I 


lip   i 


«•  LECTURES  ON  HEROES 

body :  Who  Uiis  that  pretends  to  be  wiser  than  we  all ; 
that  rebukes  us  wW,  as  mere  fouls  and  worshippers  of  wood  ! 
Abu  Thaleb  the  vod  Uncle  spoke  with  him :  Could  he  not 
be  silent  ab  '  ti  hat ;  believe  it  all  for  himself,  and  not 
trouble  other  .  ;^"  ;>  r  the  chief  men,  endanger  himself  and 
them  all,  •  kinj  li  it?  Mahomet  answered:  If  the  Sun 
stood  on  h  -  i;',iit  I  \nd  and  the  Moon  on  his  left,  orderinji 
him  to  holo  his  v.  .re,  he  r^uld  not  obey  !  No  ;  there  was 
something   n  i  ).■    1  n'rh  '      !  .  I  got  which  was  of  Nature 

10  herself;  en.i  n  f-;'.  ;  .  oun,  or  Moon,  or  whatsoever 
thing  Naiur  h  lu  ..  *  .  It  would  speak  itself  there,  so 
long  as  the  .'  Imigh  .  'owed  it,  in  spite  of  Sun  and  Moon, 
and  all  Koi  ish  :tuJ  ili  men  and  things.  It  must  do  that, 
and  could  do  no  other.  Mahomet  answered  so ;  and,  they 
say,  'burst  into  tears.'  liurst  into  tears:  he  felt  that  Abu 
Thaleb  was  good  to  him ;  that  the  task  he  had  got  was  no 
soft,  but  a  stern  and  great  one. 

He  went  on  speaking  to  who  would  listen  to  him ;  pub- 
lishing his  Doctrine  among  the  pilgrims  as  they  came  to 

20  Mecca ;  gaining  adherents  in  this  place  and  that.  Contin- 
ual contradiction,  hatred,  open  or  secret  danger  attended 
him.  His  powerful  relations  protected  Mahomet  himself; 
but  by  and  by,  on  his  own  advice,  all  his  adherents  had 
to  quit '  Mecca,  and  seek  refuge  in  Abyssinia  over  the 
sea.  The  Koreish  grew  ever  angrier  ;  laid  plots,  and  swore 
oaths  among  them,  to  put  Mahomet  to  death  with  their 
own  hands.  Abu  rh;ileb  was  dead,  the  good  Kadijah  was 
dead.  Mahomet  is  not  solicitous  of  sympathy  from  us : 
but  his  outlook  at  this  time  was  one  of  the  dismalest.'-     He 

30  had  to  hide  in  caverns,  escape  in  disguise ;  fly  hither  and 
thither  ;  homeless,  in  continual  peril  of  his  life.  More  than 
once  it  seemed  all-over'  with  him;  more  than  once  it 
turned  on  a  straw,  some  rider's  horse  taking  fright  or  the 

1  H'  quite  «  m  ^a  h^  dismallest  »  H»  II»  H^  aU  over 


THK  HKKO  AS  PKOPltKT 


(A 


like,  whether  Mahomet  and  his  Doctrine  had  not  ended 
there,  and  not  been  heard  of  at  all.  Hut  it  was  not  to 
end  so. 

In  the  thirteenth  year  of  his  mission,  finding  his  enemies 
all  banded  aj^ainst  him,  forty  sworn  men,  one  out  of  every 
tribe,  waiting  to  take  his  life,  and  no  continuance  possible 
at  Mecca  for  him  any  longer,  Mahomet  Hed  to  the  place 
then  called  \athreb,  where  he  had  gamed  some  adherents; 
the  place  they  now  call   Medina,  or  '  A/ciwit  a/  AaN,  the 
City  of  the  Prophet,'  from  that  circumstance.     It  lay  some  .c 
200  miles  off,  through  rocks  ind  deserts ;  not  without  great 
dirticulty.    in    such    mor.d    a.   we    may  fancy,  he  escaped 
thither,  and  found  welcome.      The  whole  Kast  dates  its  era 
from  this   Flight,  J/igh,7  as  th  y  name  it:    the  Year  i  of 
this  Hegir.i  is  622  of  our  Kr.i,  the  tifty-third  of  Mahomet's 
life.     He   vas  now  becoming  an  old  man  :  his  friends  sink- 
in-  round  ^um  one  by  one  ;  his  path  desolate,  encmpassed 
with  dan-ur:  unless  he  could  find  hope  in  his  own  heart, 
the  outward  face  of  things  was  but  hopeless  for  him.     It  is 
so  with  all  men  in  the  like  case.      Hitherto   Mahomet  liad  20 
rr-.fessed  to  publish  his  Religion  by  tlu-  way  of  preaching 
anti  persuasion  alone.     Hut   now,  driven  foully  out  of  his 
native  country,  since  unjust  men  had  not  only  ^iven  no  ear 
to  his  earnest  Heaven •s-mess;ige,  the  deep  cry  of  I  is  ht   =1. 
but  would  not  even  let  him  live  if  he  kept  speaking  it,    - 
the  wild  Son  of  the  Desert  r.  solved  t..  defend      niself   like 
a  man  and  Arab.      If  the  Koreish  will  have  it  so,  they  shall 
have  it.     Tidings,  felt  to  be  of  infinite  m.  ment  to  them 
and  all  men,  tiiey  would  not  listen  to  th  se :   would  trample 
them  down  by  sheer  violence,  steel  am    n   irder     well  let  30 
steel  try  it  then  !     Ten  years  more    'ns  M  ihomet  had ;  all 
of  righting,  of  breathless  impetuous  t<  il  and  struggle;  with 
what  result  we  know. 
Much  has  been  said  of  Mahomet's  pro;    gating  his  Keli- 


!i 


70 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


gion   by  the  sword.     It  is  no  doubt   far  nobler  what  we 
have  to  boast  of  the  Christian  Religion,  that  it  propagated 
itself  peaceably  in  the  way  of  preaching  and  conviction. 
Yet  withal,  if  we  take  tliis  for  an  argument  of  the  truth  or 
falsehood  of  a  religion,  there  is  a  radical  mistake  in  it.  The 
sword  indeed :  but  where  will  you  get  your  sword  !     Every 
new  opinion,  at  its  starting,  is  precisely  in  a  minority  of  one. 
In  one  man's  head  alone,  there  it  dwells  as  yet.     One  man 
alone    of    the  whole  world   believes  it ;  there  is  one  man 
lo  a<rainst  all  men.      That  he  take  a  sword,  and  try  to  propa- 
gate  with  that,  will  do  little  for  him.     You  must  first  get 
your  sword !     On  the  whole,  a  thing  will  propagate  itself 
as  it  can.     We  do  not  find,  of  the  Christian  Religion  either, 
that  it  always  disdained  the  sword,  when  once  it  had  got 
one.     Charlemagne's  conversion  of  the  Saxons  was  not  by 
preaching.     I  care  little  about  the  sword :   I  will  allow  a 
thing  to  struggle  for  itself  in  this  world,  with  any  sword  or 
tongue  or  implement  it  has,  or  can  lay  hold  of.     We  will 
let  it  preach,  and  pamphleteer,  and  fight,  and  to  the  utter- 
20  most  bestir  itself,  and  do,  beak  and  claws,  whatsoever  is  in 
it ;  very  sure  that  it  will,  in  the  long-run,  conquer  nothing 
which  does  not  deserve  to  be  conquered.     What  is  better 
than  itself,  it  cannot   put  away,  but  only  what  is  worse. 
In  this  great  Duel,  Nature  herself  is  umpire,  and  can  do  no 
wrong:  the  thing  which  is  deepest-rooted  in  Nature,  what 
we  call  truest,  that  thing  and  not  the  other  will  be  found 
growing  at  last. 

Here  however,  in  reference  to  much  that  there  is  in 
Mahomet  and  his  success,  we  are  to  remember  what  an  um- 
30  pire  Nature  is ;  what  a  greatness,  composure  of  depth  and 
tolerance  there  is  in  her.  You  take  wheat  to  cast  into  the 
Earth's  bosom :  your  wheat  may  be  mixed  with  chaff, 
chopped  straw,  barn-sweepings,  dust  and  all  imaginable 
rubbish  ;  no  matter :  you  cast  it  into  the  kind  just  Earth ; 


THE  IIEKO  AS  PROri/ET 


71 


she  grows  the  wheat,  —  the  whole  rubbish  she  silently  ab- 
sorbs, shrouds  //  in,  says  nothing   of    the    rubbish.     The 
yellow  wheat  is  growing  there;  the  good  Earth  is  silent 
about  all  the  rest,  —has  silently  turned  all  the  rest  to  some 
benefit  too,  and  makes  no  complaint  about  it !     So  every- 
where in  Nature  !     She  is  true  and  not  a  lie ;  and  yet  so 
great,  and  just,  and  motherly  in  her  truth.     She  requires  of 
a  thing  only  that  it  be  genuine  of  heart ;  she  will  protect  it 
if  so ;  will  not,  if  not  so.      There  is  a  soul  of  truth  in  all  the 
things  she  ever  gave  harbour  to.     Alas,  is  not  this  the  his-  lo 
tory  of  all  highest  Truth  that  comes  or  ever  came  into  the 
world  t  The  body  of  them  all  is  imperfection,  an  element  of 
light  hi  darkness  :  to  us  they  have  to  come  embodied  in  mere 
Logic,  in  some  merely  scientific  Theorem  of  the  Universe ; 
which  cannot  be  complete;  which   cannot  but  be  found,' 
one  day,  ///-complete,  erroneous,  and  so  die  and  disappear! 
The  body  of  all  Truth  dies ;  and  yet  in  all,  I  say,  there  is 
a  soul  which  never  dies;  which  in   new   and   ever-nobler 
embodiment  lives  immortal  as  man  himself !     't  is  the  way 
with  Nature.     The  genuine  essence  of  Truth  never  dies.  20 
That  it  be  genuine,  a  voice  from  the  great  Deep  of  Nature, 
there  is  the  point   at    Nature's  judgment-seat.     What  we 
call  pure  or  impure,  is  not  with  her  the  final  question.     Not 
how  much   chaff  is   in   you;    but  whether  you  have  any 
wheat.     Pure  >.     I  might  say  to  many  a  man  :  Yes,  you  are 
pure  ;  pure  enough  ;  but  you  are  chaff,  —  insincere  hypothe- 
sis, hearsay,  formality ;  you  never  were  in  contact  with  the 
great  heart  of  the  Universe  at  all ;  you  are  properly  neither 
pure  nor  impure ;  you  an  nothing,  Nature  has  no  business 
with  you. 

Mahomet's  Creed  we  called  a  kind  of  Christianity ;  and 
really,  if  we  look  at  the  wild  rapt  earnestness  with  which  it 
was  believed  and  laid  to  heart,  I  should  say  a  better  kind 
than  that  of  those  miserable  Syrian  Sects,  with  their  vain 


iriti 


if 

I 

."I  ■ . 

Xf:      . 

\ 

1 

% 


■y .  ■{. 


72 


LECTURES  OAT  HEROES 


janglings  about  Hotnoiousion  and  Homoousion,  the  head  full 
of  worthless  noise,  the  heart  empty  and  dead !  'I'he  truth 
of  it  is  embedded  in  portentous  error  and  falsehood :  but 
the  truth  of  it  makes  it  be  believed,  not  the  falsehood :  it 
succeeded  by  its  truth.  A  bastard  kind  of  Christianity, 
but  a  living  kind ;  with  a  heart-life  in  it ;  not  dead,  chop- 
ping barren  logic  merely  !  Out  of  all  that  rubbish  of  Arab 
idolatries,  argumentative  theologies,  traditions,  subtleties, 
rumours  and  hypotheses  of  Greeks  and  Jews,  with  their  idle 

10  wiredrawings,  this  wild  man  of  the  Desert,  with  his  wild 
sincere  heart,  earnest  as  death  and  life,  with  his  great 
flashing  natural  eyesight,  had  seen  into  the  kernel  of  the 
matter.  Idolatry  is  nothing:  these  Wooden  Idols  of  yours, 
'ye  rub  them  with  oil  and  wax,  and  the  Hies  stick  on  them,' 
—  these  are  wood,  I  tell  you  !  They  can  do  nothing  for 
you;  they  are  an  impotent  blasphemous  pretence;  a  horror 
and  abomination,  if  ye  knew  them.  God  alone  is ;  God 
alone  has  power ;  He  made  us.  He  can  kill  us  and  keep  us 
alive:  ''Allah  akbar,  God  is  great.'     Understand  that  His 

20  will  is  the  best  for  you ;  that  howsoever  sore  to  flesh-and- 
blood,'  you  will  find  it  the  wisest,  best :  you  are  bound  to 
take  it  so  ;  in  this  world  and  in  the  next,  you  have  no  other 
thing  that  you  can  do*! 

And  now  if  the  wild  idolatrous  men  did  believe  this, 
and  with  their  fiery  hearts  lay  hold  of  it  to  do  it,  in  what 
form  soever  it  came  to  them,  I  say  it  was  well  worthy  of 
being  believed.  In  one  form  or  the  other,  I  say  it  is  still 
the  one  thing  worthy  of  being  believed  by  all  men.  Man 
does  hereby  become  the  high-priest  of  this  Temple  of  a 

30  World.  He  is  in  harmony  with  the  Decrees  of  the  Author 
of  this  World;  cooperating''  with  them,  not  vainly  v/ith- 
standing  them :   I  know,  to  this  day,  no  better  definition  of 

1  H'  W  \V  flesh  and  blood  2  h'  W  \V  fw paragraph. 

8  H'  H'  H'  cooperating 


TJIE   JIhRO  AS  PROPHET 


73 


Duty  than  that  same.  All  that  is  ;-/>///  inchides  itself  in 
this  of  cooperating '  with  the  real  I'cndency  of  the  World  • 
you  succeed  by  this  (the  World's  iendency  will  succeed) 
you  are  good,  and  in  the  rigju  course  there.  Jfomoiousiou 
//omoousw,,,  vain  logical  jairgie,  then  or  before  or  at  any 
time,  may  jangle  iiselt  out,  and  go  whither  and  how  it  likes  ■ 
this  is  the  f/iwi^r  it  all  struggles  to  mean,  if  it  would  mean 
anything.  If  it  do  not  succeed  in  meaning  this,  it  means 
nothmg.  Not  that  Abstractions,  logical  Propositions,  be 
correctly  worded  or  incorrectly  ;  but  the  living  concrete  .o 
Sons  of  Adam  do  lay  this  to  heart:  that  is  the  important 
point.  Islam  devoured  all  these  vain  jangling  Sects ;  and 
I  think  had  right  to  do  so.  It  was  a  Realitv,  direct 'from 
the  great  Heart  of  Nature  once  more.  Arab  idolatries, 
Syrian  formulas,  whatsoever  was  not  equally  real,  had  to  go 
up  in  flame,  — mere  dead  >•/,  in  various  senses,  for  this 
which  was  yfn*. 

It   was    during    these  wild  warfarings    and  strugglin<Ts, 
especially  after  the  Flight  to   Mecca,   that   Mahomet  dk- 
uited  at  intervals  his  Sacred  IJook,  which  thev  name  Koran,  20 
or  /^ea,/i>,jr,  'Thing  to  be  read.'      I'his  is  the' Work  he  and 
his  disciples  made  so  much  of,  asking  all  the  world.  Is  not 
that  a  miracle  .'      I'he  Mahometans  regard  their  Koran  with 
a  reverence  which  few  (  hristians  pay  even  to  their   iJible. 
It  is  admitted  everywhere  as  the  standard  of  all  law  and 
all  practice  ;  the  thing  to  be  gone-uijon  -  in  speculation  and 
hfe:    the  message  sent   direct  out  of    Heaven,  which   this 
Karth  has  to   conform   to.   and   walk  by;  the  thing  to  be 
read.     Their  Judges  decide  by  it ;  all  Moslem  are  bound  to 
>tudy  it,  seek  in  it  for  the  light  of  their  life.     Thev  have  30 
mosques  where  it  is  all  read  daily  ;  thirty  relays  of  priests 
take  it  up  in  succession,  get  through  the  whole  each  dav 

'  II'  11=  II'  coo])erating 
2H'  IIMlJgoneupon 


1% 


f  ■> 


vm 


74 


LECTURES  OS'  HEROES 


!. 


iJi 


There,  for  twelve-hundred '  years,  has  the  voice  of  this 
Book,  at  all  moments,  kept  sounding  through  the  ears  and 
the  hearts  of  so  many  men.  We  hear  of  Mahometan  Doc- 
tors that  have  read  it  seventy-thousand"  times! 

Very  curious:    if    one  sou^t  for  'discrepancies  of  na- 
tional taste,'  here  surely  were  the  most  eminent  instance 
of  that !     We  also  can  read  the  Koran  ;  our  Translation  of 
it,  by  Sale,  is  known  to  be  a  very  fair  one.     I  must  say,  it 
is  as  toilsome  reading  as  I  ever  undertook.     A  wearisome 
10  confused  jumble,  crude,  incondite ;  endless  iterations,  long- 
windedness,'  entanglement;    most  crude,  incondite  ;  — in- 
supportable stupidity,  in  short !     Nothing  but  a  sense  of 
duty  could  carry  any  F.uropean  through  the  Koran.     We 
read  in  it,  as  v.c  might  in  the  State-l'aper  Office,  unreadable 
masses  of  lumber,  that  perhaps  we  may  get  some  glimpses 
of  a  remarkable  man.     It  is  true  we  have  it  under  disad- 
vantages:  the  Arabs  see  more  method  in  it  than  we.     Ma- 
homet's followers  found  the  Koran  lying  all  in  fractions,  as 
it  had  been  written-down  *  at  first  promulgation  ;  much  of 
20  it,  they  say,  on  shoulder-blades  of  mutton,  flung  pell-mell 
into  a  chest :  and  they  published  it,  without  any  discover- 
able order  as  to   time  or  otherwise ;  — merely  trying,  as 
would  seem,  and  this  not  very  strictly,  to  put  the  longest 
chapters  first.      The  real  beginning  of  it,  in  that  way,  lies 
almost  at  the  end :  for  the  earliest  portions  were  the  short- 
est.     Read  in  its  historical  sequence  it  perhaps  would  not 
be  so  bad.      Much  of  it,  too,  they  say,  is  rhythmic ;  a  kind 
of  wild  chanting '■  song,  in  the  original.     "Ihis  may  be  :i 
great  point ;  much  perhaps  has  been  lost  in  the  Translati.ni 
30  here."     Vet  with  every  allowance,  one  feels  it  difficult  to  sec 
how  anv  mortal  ever  covild  consider  this  Koran  as  a  Hock 


'  IP  n=  H'  twuvc  hundred  ♦  IP  IP  H^  writt.-n  down 

'-;  IP  IP  W  seventy  thousand      '•>  IP  11^  H'  chaunting 

'»  H'  n^  FP  lon^windedness         "  *  rot  in  \\\,i/</'tars  in  H'  IVas/un: 


THE  IfRRO  AS  PROPHET 


75 


written  in  Heaven,  too  good  for  the  Earth  ;  as  a  well-written 
book,  or  indeed  as  a  hook  at  all ;  and  not  a  bewildered 
rhapsody  ;  wnthn,  so  far  as  writing  goes,  as  badly  as  almost 
any  book  ever  was :  So  much  for  national  discrepancies, 
and  the  standard  of  taste. 

Yet  I  should  say,  it  was  not  unintelligible  how  the  Arabs 
might  so  love  it.     When  once  you  get  this  confused  coil  of 
a  Koran  fairly  off  your  hands,  and  have  it  behind  you  at  a 
distance,  the  essential  type  of  it  begins  to  disclose  itself; 
and  in  this  there  is  a  merit  quite  other  than  the  literary  one.'  lo 
If  a  book  come  from  the  heart,  it  will  contrive  to  reach 
other  hearts  ;  all  art  and  authorcraft  are  of  small  amount  to 
that.     One  would  say  the  primary  character  of  the  Koran 
is  this  of  its  genuineness,  of    its  being  a  bona-fide^    book. 
Hrideaux,  I  know,  and  others  have  represented  it  as  a  mere 
bundle  of  juggleries  ;  chapter  after  chapter  got-up  ■'  to  excuse 
and  varnish  the  author's  successive  sins,  forward  his  am- 
bitions and   quackeries:  but   really   it  is   time  to  dismiss 
all  that.     I  do  not  assert  Mahomet's  continual  sincerity : 
who  is  continually  sincere .'     But  I  confess    I   can   make  20 
nothing  of  the  critic,  in  these  times,  who  would  accuse  him 
of  deceit //-,/.7/j<,-  of  conscious  deceit  generally,  or  perhaps 
at  all ;  —  still  more,  of  living  in  a  mere  element  of  conscious 
deceit,  and   writing    this    Koran  as  a  forger    and   juggler 
would  have  done  !     Every  candid  eye,  I  think,  will  readlhe 
Koran  far  otherwise  than  so.     It  is  the  confused  ferment 
of  a  great  rude  human  sou! ;  rude,  untutored,  that  cannot 
even  read ;  but  fervent,  earnest,  struggling  vehemently  to 
utter  itself  in  words.     With  a  kind  of  breathless  intensity 
he  strives  to  utter  himself ;  the  thoughts  crowd  on  him  pell-  30 
mell:  for   very  multitude    of   things    to    say,   he    can   get 
nothing  said.     The  meaning  that  is  in  him  shapes  itself 
mto  no  form  of    composition,  is  stated    in    no    sequence, 
1  I!'  In'nA-fide  2  IF  U=  [ji  got  i,p 


'1 
I 


.1-  --'i 


"I  ■ 


'    ' 


76 


LECTURES   OX  HEROES 


method,  or  coherence ;  —  they  are  not  shaped  at  all,  these 
thoughts  of  his;  fliinj,'-out  ^  unshavied,  as  they  struggle 
and  tumble  there,  in  their  chaotic  inarticulate  state.  We 
said  'stupid':  yet  natural  stupidity  is  by  no  means  the 
character  of  Mahomet's  liook  ;  it  is  natural  uncultivation 
rather.  The  man  has  not  studied  speaking ;  in  the  haste 
and  pressure  of  continual  fighting,  has  not  time  to  mature 
himself  into  fit  speech.  The  panting  breathless  haste  and 
vehemence  of  a  man  struggling  in  the  thick  of  battle  for 
10  life  and  salvation  ;  this  is  the  mood  he  is  in  !  A  headlong 
haste ;  for  very  magnitude  of  meaning,  he  cannot  get  him- 
self articulated  into  words.  The  successive  utterances  of 
a  soul  in  that  mood,  coloured  by  the  various  vicissitudes  of 
three-and-twenty  years  ;  now  well  uttered,  now  worse :  this 
is  the  Koran. 

For  we  are  to  consider  Mahomet,  through  these  three- 
and-twenty  years,  as  the  centre  of  a  world  wholly  in  con- 
flict. Battles  with  the  Koreish  and  Heathen,  quarrels 
among  his  own  people,  backslidings  of  his  own  wild  heart; 
20  all  this  kept  him  in  a  perpetual  whirl,  his  soul  knowing  rest 
no  more.  In  wakeful  nights,  as  one  may  fancy,  the  wild 
soul  of  the  man,  tossing  amid  these  vortices,  would  hail 
any  light  of  a  decision  for  them  as  a  veritable  light  from 
Heaven  ;  any  making-up-  of  his  mind,  so  blessed,  indispen- 
sable for  him  there,  would  seem  the  inspiration  of  a  Gabriel. 
Forger  and  juggler?  No,''  no!  This  great  fiery  heart, 
seething,  simmering  like  a  great  furnace  of  thoughts,  was 
not  a  juggler's.  His  life*  was  a  Fact  to  him;  this  God's 
Universe  an  awful  Fact  and  Reality.  He  has  faults  enough. 
30  The  man  was  an  uncultured  semi-barbarous  Son  of  Nature, 
much  of  the  Bedouin  still  clinging  to  him :  we  must  take 
him  for  that.     But  for  a  wretched  Simulacrum,  a  hungry 


»  H'  H"  H»  flung  out 
2  H«  H*  IP  making  up 


»  H«  IP  Ah 
*  H»  IP  H'  Life 


a     h 
^     n 


T//£  HERO   AS  PROPHET 


77 


Impostor  without  eyes  or  heart,  practisicg  for  a  mess  of 
pottage  such  blasphemous  swindlery,  forgery  of  celestial 
documents,  continual  high-treason  against  hiS-  Maker  and 
Self,  we  will  not  and  cannot  take  him.  •»• 

Sincerity,  in  all  senses,  seems  to  me  the  merit  of   the 
Koran ;  what  had  rendered  it  precious  to  the  wild  Arab 
men.      It  is,  after  all,  the  hrst  and  last  merit  in  a  book  • 
gives  rise  to  merits  of  all  ki.ids,--  nay,  at  bottom,  it  alone 
can   give  rise  to  merit  of   any  kind.     Curiously,  throu-h 
these  incondite  masses  of  tradition,  vituperation,  complaint,  re 
ejaculation  in  the  Koran,  a  vein  of  true  direct  insight,  of 
what   we  might   almost   call    poetry,   is   found    stragglin- 
The  body  of  the  JJook  is  made-up'  of  mere  tradition,  and 
as  It  were  vehement  enthusiastic  extempore  preaching.    He 
returns  forever  to  the  old  stories  of  the  I'rophets  as  they 
went    current   in   the  Arab   memory:    how    Prophet    after 
Prophet,   the    Prophet   Abraham,   the    Prophet    Hud,   the 
Prophet    Moses,  Christian    and    other    real    and    fabulous 
Prophets,  had  come  to  this  Tribe  and  to  that,  warning  men 
of  their  sin;  and  been  received  by  them  even  as  he  Mahomet  =o 
was, —  which  is  a  great  solace  to  him.     These  things  he 
repeats  ten,  perhaps  twenty  times ;  again  and  ever  a^gain, 
with  wearisome  iteration  ;  has  never  done  repeating  them.' 
A  brave  Samuel  Johnson,  in  his  forlorn  garret,  might  con- 
over  -  the  Biographies  of  Authors  in  that  way  !     This  is  the 
great  staple  of  the  Koran.     But  curiously,  through  all  this, 
comes  ever  and  anon  some  glance  as  of  the  real  thinker 
and  seer.     He  has  actually  an  eye  for  the  world,  this  Ma- 
homet:  with  a  certain  directness   and    rugged  vi-our,  he 
brings  home  still,  to  our  heart,  the  thing  his  own  heart  has  30 
been  opened  to.      I  make  but  little  of  his  praises  of    \llah 
which  many  praise:  they  arc  borrowed  I   suppose  mainly 
from    the    Hebrew,  at   least  they  are  far  surpassed  there. 
•  H'  tP  Hi  made  up  -^  in  u--  .study  \V  con  over 


I.   A 


1 

1 J  i' 

'  li 

|;i 

III 

78 


LECTURES  OX  IIEKOES 


But  the  eye  that  flashes  direct  into  the  heart  of  things,  and 
sees  the  truth  of  them;  this  is  to  me  a  highly  interesting 
object.  Great  Nature's  own  gift ;  which  she  bestows  on 
all ;  but  which  only  one  in  the  thousand  does  not  cast  sor- 
rowfully away  :  it  is  what  1  call  sincerity  of  vision  ;  the  test 
of  a  sincere  heart' 

Mahomet  can  work  no  miracles;  he  often  answers  im- 
patiently :  I  can  work  no  miracles,  I  ?  '  I  am  a  Public 
Preacher ; '  appointed  to  preach  this  doctrine  to  all  crea- 

lo  tures.  Yet  the  world,  as  we  can  see,  had  really  from  of  old 
been  all  one  great  miracle  to  him.  Look  over  the  world, 
says  he;  is  it  not  wonderful,  the  work  of  Allah ;  wholly  'a 
sign  to  you,'  if  your  eyes  were  open !  This  Karth,  God 
made  it  for  you ;  •  appointed  paths  in  it ; '  you  can  live  in 
it,  go  to  and  fro  on  it.  —  The  clouds  in  the  dry  country  of 
Arabia,  to  Mahomet  they  are  very  wonderful :  Great  clouds, 
he  says,  born  in  the  deep  bosom  of  the  Upper  Immensity, 
where  do  they  come  from !  They  hang  there,  the  great 
black  monsters ;  pour-down "  their  rain-deluges  '  to  revive  a 

20  dead  earth,'  and  grass  springs,  and  'tall  leafy  palm-trees 
with  their  date-clusters  hanging  round.  Is  not  that  a 
sign  ? '  Your  cattle  too,  —  Allah  made  them  ;  serviceable 
dumb  creatures;  they  change*  the  grass  into  milk;  you 
have  your  clothing  from  them,  very  strange  creatures ; 
*they  come  ranking  home  at  evening-time,^  'and,'  adds  he, 
♦and'  are  a  credit  to  you  ! '  Ships*  also,  -  he  talks  often 
about  ships :  Huge  moving  mountains,  they  spread-out ' 
their  cloth  wings,  go  bounding  through  the  water  there, 
Heaven's  wind  driving    them ;    anon  they  lie    motionless, 

30  God  has  withdrawn  the  wind,  they  lie  dead,  and      innot 


:i\ 


1  I''  H'  H'  no  faracraph.  *♦  not  in  H' 

2  H'  H»  \V  pour  down  ^  IP  and  they 
•H'make  «  H' IP  Ships,— 

'  H'  IP  H'  spread  out 


THE   l/F.KO   AS  PKOrtlEr  79 

stir  !      Miracles?  crit-s  he:   Wh.U  miracle  would  you  have? 
Are  not  y(.u  yourselves  there?     (;o(l  made  .vv/,'  'shaped 
you  out  of  a  little  clay.'      \  e  were  small  once';  a  few  years 
a-o  ye  were  not  at  all.      \  e  have  beauty,  stren.Ljth.  thou^dits, 
'ye  have  compassion  on  one  another.'     ( )|(|  .i^r,..  comes-.m  - 
you,  and  grayMiairs;  your  stren-th  fades  into  feebleness; 
ye  sink  down,  and  again  are  not.     '  \e  have  c(,mpassion  on' 
one  another:'    this  struck  me  much:    .Allah    might    have 
made   you  having  no  compassion  on  one  another,       how 
had  it  been  then  !     This  is  a  great  direct  thought,  a  glance  .o 
at  first-hand  mto  the  very  fact  of  things.      Rude  vestiges  of 
poetic  genius,  of  whatsoever  is  best  and  truest,  are  visible 
m  this  man.     A  strong  untutored  intellect ;  eyesight,  heart : 
a  str  .,ig  wild  man,  — might  have  shaped  himself  into  Poet, 
King,  Priest,  any  kind  of  Hero. 

To  his  eyes  it  is  forever  clear  that  this  world  wholly  is 
miraculous.      He   sees  what,   as  we  said    once    before,  all 
great  thinkers,  the  rude  .Scandinavians  themselves,  in  one 
way  or  other,  have  contrived  to  see  :  That  this  so  solid- 
looking  material  world  is,  at  bottom,  in  verv  deed,  Nothm^  •  20  / 
IS  a  visual  and  tactual  Afanifcstation  of  God's  power  ami      / 
I^rt'sence,  — a  shadow  hung-outMjy  Him  on  the  bosom  of     / 
the  void  Infinite  ;  nothing  more.      The  mountains,  he  says, 
these  great  rock-mountains,  they  shall  dissipate  themselves 
'  like  clouds ; '  melt  into  the  Jilue  as  clouds  do,  and  not  be  ' 
He  figures  the  Karth,  in  the  Arab  fashion.  Sale  tells  us,  as 
an  immense  Plain  or  fiat   Plate  of  ground,  the  mountains 
arc  set  on  that   to  slca,iy  it.      At   the   Last   Dav  thev  shall 
a:. appear  '  like  clouds  ;  '  the  whole  Karth  shall  go  spinning, 
\vhirl  it.self  off  into  wreck,  and  as  dust  and  vapour  vanis^i  30 
HI  the   Inane.     Allah  withdraws  his  hand  from  it,  and  it 
ceases    to  be.     The  universal   empire  of    Allali,   presence 


I) 


V,\ 


>  H'you 

-  H'  FIMI'cnn.. 


II'  H-'  tfigrey 
*  IP  \\-  HMiunrrout 


80 


LECTURES  ON  IIENOES 


•i  ,( 

i  L 


ii' 
1^ 


!    W 


everywhere  of  an  unsiJeakahU;  I'ower,  a  Splendour,  and  a 
Terror  not  to  be  named,  as  the  true  force,  essence  and  re- 
ality, in  all  things  whatsoever,  was  continually  clear  to  this 
man.  What  a  modern  talks-of '  by  the  name,  !•  orces  of 
Nature,  Laws  of  Nature;  and  does  not  figure  as  a  divine 
thing;  not  even  as  one  thing  at  all,  but  as  a  set  of  things, 
undivine  enough,  saleable,  curious,  good  for  propelling 
steam-shii)s  !  With  our  Sciences  and  Cyclopa'dias,  we  are 
apt  to  forget  the  tihunawis,  in  those  laboratories  of  ours. 

10  We  ought  not  to  forget  it !  That  once  well  forgotten, 
I  know  not  what  else  were  worth  remembering.  Most 
sciences,  I  think,  were  then  a  very  dead  thing;  withered, 
contentious,  empty  ;  a  thistle  in  late  autunui.  I'he  best 
science,  without  this,  is  but  as  the  dead  timber ;  it  is  not 
the  growing  tree  and  forest,  which  gives  ever-new  timber, 
among  other  things!  Man  cannot  huow  either,  unless  he 
can  wors/iip  in  some  way.  His  knowledge  is  a  pedantry, 
and  dead  thistle,  otherwise. 

Much  has  been  said  and  written  about  the  sensuality 

20  of  Mahomet's  Religion  ;  more  than  was  just.  'I'he  indul 
gences,  criminal  to  us,  which  he  permitted,  were  not  of  his 
appointment ;  he  found  them  practised,  unquestioned  from 
immemorial  time  in  .\rabia ;  what  he  did  was  to  curtail 
them,  restrict  them,  not  on  one  but  on  many  sides.  His 
religion  is  not  an  easy  one:  with  rigorous  fasts,  lavations, 
strict  complex  formulas,  prayers  five  times  a  day,  and 
abstinence  from  wine,  it  did  not  'succeed  by  being  an  easy 
Religion.'  As  if  indeed  any  religion,  or  cause  holding  of 
religion,  could  succeed  by  that!     It  is  a  calumny  on  men 

3°  to  say  that  they  are  roused  to  heroic  action  by  ease,  hoi^c 
of  pleasure,  recompense,  sugar-plums  of  any  kind,  in  this 
world  or  in  the  next!  In  the  meanest  mortal  there  lies 
something    nobler.      The    poor   swearing   soldier,   hired  to 


1  II'  W  IV  talks  of 


THE   I/EA'O   AS  PROPHET 


81 


be  shot,  has  his  'honour  of  .1  soldier,'  different  from  drill- 
regulations  and  the  shilling  a  day.  It  is  not  to  taste  sweet 
things,  but  to  do  noble  and  true  things,  and  vindicate  him 
self  under  (Jod's  Heaven  as  a  god -made  Man,  that  the 
poorest  son  of  Adam  dimly  longs.  .Show  '  him  the  way  of 
doing  that,  the  dullest  daydrudge  kindles  into  a  hero. 
Ihey  wrong  man  greatly  who  say  he  is  to  be  seduced 
by  ease.  Difficulty,  abnegation,  martyrdom,  death  are  the 
iilliimnaits  that  act  on  the  heart  of  man.  Kindle  the  inner 
genial  life  of  him,  you  have  a  riame  that  burns-up- all  lower  10 
considerations.  Not  happiness,  but  something  higher :  one 
seos  this  even  in  the  frivolous  classes,  with  their  'point  of 
honour  '  and  the  like.  Not  by  Hatlering  our  appetites  :  no, 
by  awakening  the  Heroic  that  slumbers  in  every  heart,  can 
any  Religion  gain  followers. 

Mahomet  himself,  after  all  that  can  be  said  about  him, 
was  not  a  sensual  man.  We  shall  err  widely  if  we  consider 
this  man  as  a  common  vtjluptuary,  intent  mainly  on  base 
enjoyments,  -  nay  on  enjoyments  of  any  kind.  His  house- 
hold was  of  the  frugalest  ^  his  common  diet  barley-bread  -0 
and  water  :  sometimes  for  months  there  was  not  a  fire  once 
lighted  on  his  hearth.  They  record  with  just  pride  that  he 
would  mend  his  own  shoes,  jxitch  his  own  cloak.  A  poor, 
hard-toiling,  ill-provided  man  ;  careless  of  what  vulgar  men 
toil  for.  Not  a  bad  man.  I  should  say ;  something  better 
in  him  than  hun;r^,-  of  any  sort,  —  or  these  wild  .Arab  men, 
righting  and  jostling  three-and-twenty  *  years  at  his  hand, 
in  close  contact  with  him  always,  would  not  have  rever- 
enced him  so!  They  were  wild  men,  bursting  ever  and 
anon  into  quarrel,  into  all  kinds  of  rierce  sincerity ;  with-  jo 
out  right  worth  and  manhood,  no  man  could  have  com- 
manded them.     They  called  him  Prophet,  you  say  >.     Why, 


Ml'  IF  IP  .Shew 
■^  H'  H>  IP  burns  up 


»  H'  frugallfst 

*  H'  three  and  twenty 


^y  ■11 


82 


LECrUKhS  ox  HtKOtS 


li 


^i 


he  stood  there  face  to  face  with  thcni  ;  l),ire,  not  enshrined 
in  any  mystery ;  visibly  cloiitin;^  his  (jwn  cloak,  cobblinji; 
his  own  shoes;  tif^htin;;,  cDimsellin;;,  orderinj^  in  the  midst 
of  them  :  they  must  iiave  sctii  w  hat  kind  of  a  man  '  he  74'</i, 
let  him  be  <<///?</  what  you  like  !  No  emperor  with  his  tiaras 
was  obeyed  as  this  man  in  a  cloak  of  his  own  clouting. 
During;  three-and-twenty  ^  years  of  rou;;h  actual  trial.  I 
find  something  of  a  veritable  Hero  necessary  for  that,  of 
itself. 

lo  His  last  words  are  a  prayer ;  broken  ejaculations  of  a 
heart  struggling-up''  in  trembling  ho|K*,  towards  its  Maker. 
We  cannot  say  that  his  religion  made  him  7i>orsr ;  it  made 
him  better;  good,  not  bad.  (lenerous  things  are  recorded 
of  him:  when  he  lost  his  Daughter,  the  thing  he  answers 
is,  in  his  own  dialect,  everyway  *  sincere,  and  yet  equivalent 
to  that  of  Christians,  •  The  Lord  giveth,  and  the  Lord  taketh 
away;  blessed  be  the  name  of  the  Lord.'  He  answered  in 
like  manner  of  Seid,  his  emancipated  well-beloved  Slave, 
the  second  of  the  believers.     Seid  hatl  fallen  in  the  War  of 

20  Tabuc,  the  first  of  Mahomet's  fightings  with  the  (Ireeks. 
^L1homet  said,  It  was  well;  Seid  had  done  his  Master's 
work,  Seid  had  now  gone  to  his  >Lister;  it  was  all  well 
with  Seid.  Vet  Seid's  daughter  found  him  weeping  over 
the  body; — ^the  old  gray-haired"'  man  melting  in  tears! 
"What  do  I  see  .'  "  said  she.  —  "  Vou  see  a  friend  weeping 
over  his  friend."  —  He  went  out  for  the  kist  time  into  the 
moscpie,  two  days  before  his  death  ;  asked,  If  he  had  in- 
jured any  man  ?  Let  his  own  back  bear  the  stripes.  If 
he  owed  any  man?     A   voice  answered,  "Ves,   me   thnci 

30  drachms,"  borrowed  on  such  an  occasion.  Mahomet  or- 
dered them  to  be  paid  :  "  Better  be  in  shame  now,"  said 


»  H"  W  W  of  man  »  H'  H»  IP  struggling  up 

^  \V  three  and  twenty  *  IP  H'  IP  every  way 

5  H^  grey-haired 


nui  ni'iho  AS  j-A'o/ ///./' 


83 


he,  "than  at  the  Day  of  h.d-.nent."  \  .„.  r.nu-mber 
Kadijah.  and  the  "No,  hy  Allah:"  Traits  of  that  kind 
show  us  the  jrenuinc  man.  the  brother  of  ,.s  all.  l.rouKht 
visible  thr.,„f;h  twelve  centuries,  the  veritable  Son  of 
our  common    Mother. 

Withal  I  like  Mahomet  for  his  total  frcKJo/n  from  cant 
He  IS  a  ro»-h,  self-helj.injr  s<m  of  the  wilderness  ;  does  not 
pretend   to  be  what  he   is  not.      iln  re  is  no  ostentatious 
pride  in  h.m  ;  but  neither  does  he  -o  much  upon  humility  • 
he  IS  there  as  he  can  be,  in  cloak  an>l  shoesof  his  own  clout-  .0 
injr;  s|3eaks  plainly  to  all  main...  r  ol    Persian  Kin-s.  (Ireek 
Kmperors,  what  u  is  they  arc  bound   to  do;  kn'ows  well 
enough,  about  hims  If,  'the  rc^pc  t  due  uni..  ihtx.'     In  a 
life-and-death  war  with  iJedouins.  cruel  tl.m.s  cul.l  not  fail  • 
but  neither  are  acts  of  mercy,  of  nob!  ■  nati.r.l  pitv  and  -en- 
erosity  wantin-      Mahomet  makes  .„.  ap.,lu"v  fo'r  the  one 
no  boast  of  the  other.     They  were  each  the  ftee  dictate  of 
his  heart ;  each  called  for,'  there  and  tiien.      Not  a  mealv- 
mouthed  man  !     A  candid  feroc.ty.  if  the  case  call  for  it.  is 
m  him  ;  he  does  not  mince  matters  !      The  War  of    Tabi  c  'o 
IS  a  thing  he  often  six-aks  of:  his  men  refused,  many  of 
them,  to  march  on  that  occasion  ;  pleaded  the  heat  of  the 
weather,  the  harvest,  and  so  forth  ;    he  can  never  for-et 
that.      \our  harvest  .>     It  lasts  for  a  dav.     What  will  be- 
come  of  your  harvest  through  all  Kternit  v  ?     I  lot  weather ' 
Ves,  it  was  hot;  'but   Hell  will  be  hotte'r ! '     Sometimes  a 
rough  sarcasm  turns-up«:   He  says  to  the  unbelievers.  Ye 
shall  have  the  just  measure  of  your  deeds  at  that  (Ireat  Day 
They  will  be  weighed-out »  to  you;  ye  shall  not  have  short 
weight !  —  Everywhere  he  fixes  the  matter  in  his  eye ;  he  30 
.wj  It:  his  heart,  now  and  then,  is  as  if  struck  dumb  by 
the  greatness  of  it.     •  Assuredly, "  he  says :  that  word,  in  the 

»H«H»H3  called  for  »  H"  H»  IP  turns  up 

•■'  ri'  IP  IP  weighed  out 


I    i 


J;   ■  ' 


..jl  1 1 


I 


-1     ' 


84 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


V      -i 


!    : 


Koran,  is  written-down  sometimes  as  a  sentence  by  itself : 
•  Assuredly.',^  ., , 

No  Dilettantism  in  this  Mahomet ;  it  is  a  business  of 
Reprobation  and  Salvation  with  him,  of  Time  and  Eternity : 
he  is  in  deadly  earnest  about  it !  Dilettantism,  hypothesis, 
speculation,  a  kind  of  amateur-search  for  Truth,  toying  and 
coquetting  with  Truth  :  this  is  the  sorest  sin.  The  root  of 
all  other  imaginable  sins.  It  consists  in  the  heart  and  soul 
of  the  man  never  having  been  open  to  'Truth  ;  —  '  living  in  a 

lo  vain  show.'  Such  a  m.in  not  only  utters  and  produces  false- 
hoods, but  is  himself  a  falsehood.  'I'he  rational  moral 
principle,  spark  of  the  Divinity,  is  sunk  deep  in  him.  in 
quiet  paralysis  of  life-death.  The  very  falsehoods  of  Ma- 
homet are  truer  than  the  truths  of  such  a  man.  He  is  the 
insincere  man :  smooth-polished,  respectable  in  some  times 
and  places;  inoffensive,  says  nothing  harsh  to  anybody; 
most  cleanly,  —  just  as  carbonic  acid  is,  which  is  death  and 
poison. 

We  will  not  praise  Mahomet's  moral  precepts  as  always 

20  of  the  superfinest  sort ;  yet  it  can  be  said  that  there  is 
always  a  tendency  to  good  in  them  ;  that  they  are  the 
true  dictates  of  a  heart  aiming  towards  what  is  just  and 
true.  The  sublime  forgiveness  of  Christianity,  turning  of 
the  other  cheek  when  the  one  has  been  smitten,  is  not  here  : 
you  are  to  revenge  yourself,  but  it  is  to  be  in  measure,  not 
overmuch,  or  beyond  justice.  On  the  other  hand,  Islam, 
like  any  great  Faith,  and  insight  into  the  essence  of  man, 
is  a  perfect  equaliser  '  of  men  :  the  soul  of  one  believer  out 
weighs  all  earthly  kingships;  all  men,  according  to  Islam 

30  too,  are  equal.  Mahomet  insists  nut  on  the  propriety  of 
giving  alms,  but  on  tlie  necessity  of  it :  lie  marks-down  *  by 
law  how  much  nou  arc  to  give,  and  it  is  a^  your  peril  il 
you  neglect.      I'he  tenth   part  of  a  man's  annual  irtcomc, 

1  II'  II-  II «  e(iiKili/ti  -  II'  IF  II'  marks  down  ' 


THR  HF.RO  AS  PROPl/ET 


85 


whatever  that  may  be,  is  the  property  of  the  poor,  of  those 
that  are  afflicted  and  need  help.  Good  all  this  :  the  natural 
voice  of  humanity,  of  pity  and  equity  dwelling  in  the  heart 
of  this  wild  Son  of  Nature  speaks  so. 

Mahomet's  Paradise  is  sensual,  his  Hell  sensual :  true ; 
in  the  one  and  the  other  there  is  enough  that  shocks  all 
spiritual  feeling  in  us.     lUit  we  are  to  recollect  that  the 
.\iabs  already  had  it  so ;  that  Mahomet,  in  whatever  he 
changed  of  it,  softened  and  diminished  all  this.     The  worst 
sensualities,  too,  are  the  work  of  doctors,  followers  of  his,  lo 
not  his  work.      In  the  Koran  there  is  really  very  little  said 
about  the  joys  of  Paradise  ;  they  are  intimated  rather  than 
insisted  on.     Nor  is  it  forgotten  that  the  highest  joys  even 
there  shall  be  spiritual;  the  pure  Presence  of  the  Highest, 
this  shall  infinitely   transcend   all   other  joys.      He  says,' 
'  Your  salutation  shall  be,  Peace.'     Salam,  Have  Peace  !  — 
the  thing  that  all  rational  souls  long  for,  and  seek,  vainly 
here  below,  as  the  one  blessing.     «  Ve  shall  sit  on  seats, 
facing  one  another :  all  grudges  shall  be  taken  away  out 
of  your  hearts.'     All  grudges !     Ve  shall  love  one  another  20 
freely ;  for  each  of  you,  in  the  eyes  of  his  brothers,  there 
will  be  Heaven  enough  ! 

In  reference  to  this  of  the  sensual  Paradise  and  Mahom- 
et's sen-uality,  the  sorest  chapter  of  ail  for  us,  there  were 
many  things  to  be  said  ;  which  it  is  not  convenient  to  enter 
upon  here.  Two  remarks  only  I  shall  make,  and  therewith 
leave  it  to  your  candour.  The  first  is  furnished  me  by 
(Joethe;  it  is  a  casual  hint  of  his  which  seems  well  worth 
taking  note  of.  In  one  of  his  Delineations,  in  Master's 
Travels  it  is,  the  hero  comes-upon  '  a  .Society  of  men  with  30 
very  strange  ways,  one  of  which  was  this:  "We  require," 
says  the  Master,  "  that  each  of  our  people  shall  restrict 
l.imself  in  one  direction,"  shall  go  right  against  his  desire 
'  H'  IIMT'coiTiHs  ujxm 


■Sfes 


s   r 


f  -   ■  V 


86 


I.ECTURLS  OX  HEROES 


i¥; 


in  one  maticr,  and  make  himself  do  the  thing  he  does  not 
wish,  "  should  we  allow  him  the  greater  latitude  on  all  other 
sides."  There  seems  to  me  a  great  justness  in  this.  En- 
joying things  which  are  pleasant ;  that  is  not  the  evil :  it 
is  the  reducing  of  our  moral  self  to  slavery  by  them  that  is. 
Let  a  man  assert  withal  that  he  is  king  over  his  habitudes ; 
that  he  could  and  would  shake  them  otlf,  on  cause  shown ' : 
this  is  an  excellent  law.  I'he  Month  Ramadhan  for  the 
Moslem,  much  in  Mahomet's   Religion,  much  in  his  own 

10  Life,  bears  in  that  direction  ;  if  not  by  forethought,  or  clear 
purpose  of  moral  improvement  on  his  part,  then  by  a  certain 
healthy  manful  instinct,  which  is  as  good. 

But  there  is  another  thing  to  be  said  about  the  Mahom- 
etan Heaven  and  Hell.  This  namely,  that,  however  gross 
and  material  tiiey  may  be,  they  are  an  emblem  of  an  ever- 
lasting truth,  not  always  so  well  remembered  elsewhere. 
That  gross  sensual  Paradise  of  his ;  that  horrible  flaming 
Hell ;  the  great  enormous  Day  of  Judgment  he  perpetually 
insists  on :  what  is  all  this  but  a  rude  shadow,  in  the  rude 

20  Bedouin  imagination,  of  that  grand  spiritual  Fact,  and 
Beginning  of  lacts,  which  it  is  ill  for  us  too  if  we  do  not 
all  know  and  feel :  the  Infinite  Nature  of  Duty  ?  That  man's  ^ 
actions  here  are  of  infinite  moment  to  him,  and  never  die  or  / 
end  at  all ;  that  man,  with  his  little  life,  reaches  upwards 
high  as  Heaven,  downwards  low  as  Hell,  and  in  his  three- 
score years  of  Time  holds  an  Ktcrnity  fearfully  and  wonder- 
fully hidden  :  all  this  had  burnt  itself,  as  in  flame-charac- 
ters, into  ihe  wild  Arab  soul.  As  in  flame  and  lightning, 
it  stands  writlon  there;  awful,  unspeakable, ever  present  to 

30  him.  Witii  l)urstini,f  earnestness,  with  a  tierce  savage  sin- 
cerity, half-articulating,  not  able  to  articulate,  be  strives 
to  speak  it,  bodies  it  forth  in  that  Heaven  and  that  Hell. 
Bodied  forth  in  what  way  you  will,  it  is  the  lirst  of  all 

'■  ii'  11-  i  I '.-hewn 


THE   HE  NO  AS  PKOP//ET 


fit 


f 


truths.     It  is  venerable  under  all  embodiments.     What  is 
the  chief  end  of  man  here  below  }     Mahomet  has  answered 
this  question,  in  a  way  that  might  put  some  of  us  to  shame! 
He  does  not,   like  a   Hentham,  a  Paley,  take   Right  and 
Wrong,  and  calculate  the  profit  and  loss,  ultimate  pleasure 
of  the  one  and  of  the  other;  and  summing  all  up  by  addi- 
tion and  subtraction  into  a  net  result,  ask  you,  Whether  on 
the  whole  the  Right  does  not  preponderate  considerably  ? 
No  ;  it  is  not  In-tla-  to  do  the  one  than  the  other  ;  the  one  is 
to  the  other  as  life  is  to  death, —as  Heaven  is  to  Hell.  lo 
Ihe  one  must  in  nowise  be  done,  the  other  in  nowise  left 
undone.     You  shall  not  measure  them  ;  they   are   incom- 
mensurable :  the  one  is  death  eternal  to  a  man,  the  other 
is  lite  eternal.      IJenthamee    Utility,  virtue   by   Profit  and 
Loss;  reducing  this  (lod's-world  to  a  dead  brute  Steam- 
engine,  the  infinite  celestial  Soul  of  Man  to  a  kind  of  Hay- 
balance  for  weighing  hay   and  thistles  on,  pleasures  and 
pains  on  :  --  If  you  ask  me  which  gives,  Mahomet  or  they, 
the  beggarlier  and  falser  view  of  Man  and  his  Destinies  in 

this  Universe,  I  will  answer,  It  is  not  Mahomet! 20 

On  the  whole,  we  will  repeat  that  this  Religion  of  Ma- 
homet's is  a  kind  of  Christianity;  has  a  genuine  element 
of  what  is  spiritually  highest  looking  through  it,  not  to  be 
hidden  by  all  its  imperfections.  The  Scandinavian  (lod 
Wish,  the  god  of  all  rude  men, —  this  has  been  enlarged 
into  a  Heaven  by  Mahomet;  but  a  Heaven  symbolical" of 
sacred  Duty,  and  to  be  earned  by  faith  and  welldoing,  by 
valiant  action,  and  a  divine  patience  which  is  still  more 
valiant.  It  is  Scandinavian  Paganism,  .ind  a  truly  celestial 
element  su^ieradded  to  that,  fall  it  not  false ;  look  not  at  30 
the  falsehood  of  it,  look  at  the  truth  of  it.  For  these 
twelve  centuries,  it  has  been  the  religion  and  life-guidance 
of  the  fifth  part  of  the  wholt-  kindred  of  Mankind.  Above 
all  things,  it  has  been  a  religion  heartily  helured.     These 


N 


88 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


\  I 


Arabs  believe  their  religion,  and  try  to  live  by  it !  No 
Christians,  since  the  early  ages,  or  only  perhaps  the  Eng- 
lish Puritans  in  modern  times,  have  ever  stood  by  their 
Faith  as  the  Moslem  do  by  theirs,  -believing  it  wholly, 
fronting  Time  with  it,  and  Kternity  with  it.  This  night 
the  watchman  on  the  streets  of  Cairo  when  he  cries,  "Who 
goes  ? "  will  hear  from  the  passenger,  along  with  his  an- 
swer, "There  is  no  (iod  but  (iod."  Allah  akl>ai%  hhm. 
sounds    through  the  souls,  and    whole  daily  existence,  of 

10  these  dusky  millions.  Zealous  missionaries  preach  it  abroad 
among  Malays,  black  Papuans,  brutal  Idolaters;  —  displac- 
ing what  is  worse,  nothing  that  is  better  or  good. 

To  the  Arab  Nation  it  was  as  a  birth  from  darkness  into 
light ;  Arabia  first  became  alive  by  means  of  it.  A  poor 
shepherd  people,  roaming  unnoticed  in  its  deserts  since  the 
creation  of  the  world :  a  Hero-Prophet  was  sent  down  to 
them  with  a  word  they  could  believe:  see,  the  unnoticed 
becomes  world-notable,  the  small  has  grown  world-great ; 
within  one  century  afterwards,  Arabia  is  at  Grenada  on 

20  this  hand,  at  Delhi  on  that ; —glancing  in  valour  and 
splendour  and  the  light  of  genius,  Arabia  shines  through 
long  ages  over  a  great  section  of  the  world.  Belief  is  great, 
life-giving.  The  history  of  a  Nation  becomes  fruitful,  soul 
elevating,  great,  so  soon  as  it  believes.  These  Arabs,  the 
man  Mahomet,  and  that  one  century,  —  is  it  not  as  if  a 
spark  had  fallen,  one  spark,  on  a  world  of  what  seemed 
black  unnoticeable  sand  ;  but  lo.  the  sand  proves  explosive- 
powder,  blazes  heaven-high  from  Delhi  to  Grenada  !  I  said, 
the  Great  Man  was  always  as  lightning  out  of  Heaven  ;  the 

30  rest  of  men  waited  for  him  like  fuel,  and  then  they  too 
would  flame. 


h  * 


LECTURE   III 

THE    HKR')    AS    POKT.       KANTK;    SHAKSPKARE 

[T- esday,  i;th  May  1.S40.J ' 

'The  Hero  as  Divinity,  the  Hero  as  Prophet,  are  produc- 
tions of  old  ages ;   not  to  be  repeated  in  the  new.      I'hey 
presuppose  a  certain  rudeness    of    conception,  which    the 
progress  of   mere   scientific    knowledge    puts    an    end    to. 
There  needs  to  be,  as  it  were,  a  world   vacant,  or  almost 
vacant  of  scientific  forms,  if  men  in  their  loving  wonder  are 
to  fancy  their  fellow-man  -  either  a  god  or  one  speaking 
with  the  voice  of  a  god.      Dhinity  and   I'rophet  are  past. 
We  are  now  to  see  our  Hero  in  the  less  ambitious,  but  also 
less    questionable,   character  of    I'oet ;    a  character  which  10 
does  not  pass.      I'he  Poet  is  a  heroic  figure  belonging  to  all 
ages;  whom  all  ages  possess,  when  once  he  is  produced, 
whom  the  newest  age  as  the  oldest  may  produce;  — and 
will   produce,  always  uhen    Nature    pleases.     Let  Nature 
send  a  Hero-soul ;  in  no  age  is  it  other  than  possible  that 
he  may  be  sl^aped  into  a  Poet. 

Hero,  Prophet,  Poet,  —  many  different  names,  in  differ- 
ent times  and  places,  do  we  give  to  Great  Men  ;  according 
to  varieties  we  note  in  them,  according  to  the  sphere  in 
which  they  have  displayed  themselves  !  We  might  give  --o 
many  more  names,  on  this  same  principle.  I  will  remark 
agam,  however,  as  a  fact  not  unimportant  to  be  understood, 
that  the  different  sphere  constitutes  the  grand  origin  of  such 

M I'  1 1=  M '  d„te  ,/Mv  title.  M I '  1 1-  H^  fellow  man 

Sg 


I     •: 


■;2t 


n?  J 


90 


M 


IIP 

1 1  ■  i 


,  f 


ili'l 


it 


nti 


LECTURES  ON  J/EKOES 


distinction ;  that  the  Hero  can  be  Poet,  Prophet,  King, 
Priest,  or  what  you  will,  according  to  the  kind  of  world  he 
finds  himself  born  into.  I  confess,  I  have  no  notion  of  a 
truly  great  man  that  could  not  be  a//  sorts  of  men.  The 
Poet  who  could  merely  sit  on  a  chair,  and  compose  stanzas, 
would  never  make  a  stanza  worth  much.  He  could  not 
sing  the  Heroic  warrior,  unless  he  himself  were  at  least  a 
Heroic  warrior  too.  I  fancy  there  is  in  him  the  Politician, 
the  Thinker,  Legislator,  i'hilosopher  ;  —  in  one  or  the  other 

lo  degree,  he  could  have  been,  he  is  all  these.  So  too  I  can- 
not understand  how  a  Mirabeau,  with  that  great  glowing 
heart,  with  the  tire  that  was  in  it,  with  the  bursting  tears 
that  were  in  it,  could  not  have  written  verses,  tragedies, 
poems,  and  touched  all  hearts  in  that  way,  had  his  course 
of  life  and  education  led  him  thitherward.  The  grand  fun- 
damental character  is  that  of  (Ireat  Man  ;  that  the  man  be 
great.  Napoleon  has  words  in  him  which  are  like  Auster- 
litz  Battles.  Louis  Fourteenth's  Marshals  are  a  kind  of 
poetical  men  withal ;  the  things  Turenne  says  are  full  of 

20  sagacity  and  geniality,  like  sayings  of  Samuel  Johnson. 
The  great  heart,  the  clear  deep-seeing  eye :  there  it  lies ; 
no  man  whatever,  in  what  province  soever,  can  prosper  at 
all  without  these.  Petrarch  .nd  Boccaccio  did  diplomatic 
meijsages,  it  seems,  quite  wdl :  one  can  easily  believe  it : 
they  had  done  things  a  little  harder  than  theseM  Burns, 
a  gifted  song-writer,  might  have  made  a  still  better  Mira 
beau.  Sh?kspeare,  —  one  knows  not  what  /le  could  not 
have  made,  in  the  supreme  degree. 

True,  there  are  aptitudes  of  Nature  too.     Nature  docs 

30  not  make  all  great  meif5  more  than  all  other  men,  in  the 
self-same  mould.     Varieties  of  aptitude  doubtless  ;  but  in 
finitely  more  of  circumstance;    and  f.r  oftenest  it  is  tlic 
latter  only  that  are  looked   to.      But  it  is  as  with  common 

»  ir  li-  that! 


TtfE  t/EkO  AS  POKT 


91 


men  in  the  learning  of  trades.    You  take  any  man.  as  yet  a 
vague  capabiluy  of  a  man.  who  could  be  any  kind  of  crafts- 
man; and  make  him  into  a  smith,  a  carpenter,  a  mason: 
he  .s  then  and  thenceforth  that  and  nothing  else.      \nd  if 
as  Addison  complains,  you  sometimes  see  a  street-porter 
staggering  under  his  load  on  spindle-shanks,  and  near  at 
hand  a  ta.lor  with  the  frame  of  a  Samson  handling  a  bit  of 
cloth  and  small  Whitechaix-l  needle,  -  it  cannot  be  con- 
sidered that  aptitude  of  Nature  alone  has  been  consulted 
here  either ! -^  The  Great   Man  also,  to  what  shall  he  be  ,o 
bound    apprentice?     Given    your    Hero,  is   he  to  become 
(  onqueror.  King.  Philosopher.  Poet  ?     It  is  an  inexplicably 
complex  controversial-calculation    between  the  world  and 
h.m  !     He  will  read  the  world  and  its  laws  ;  the  world  with 
Its  laws  will  be  there  to  be  read.     What  the  world,  on  t/.is 
matter,  shall  permit  and  bid  is,  as  we  said.  th«  most  impor- 
tant fact  about  the  world.  — 

Poet  and  I'rophet  differ  greatly  in  our  loose  modern  no- 
t.ons  of  them.     In  some  old  languages,  again,  the  titles  are 
synonymous;    Vatcs  means   both    Prophet  and  Poc-t :    and  20 
indeed  at  all  times,    Prophet  and    Poet,  well  understood, 
have    much  kindred  of    meming.     Fundamentallv  indeed 
they  are  still    the  same ;    in  this  most  important   respect 
especially.  That  they  have  penetrated  both  of  them  into  the 
sacred  mystery  of  the   Tniverse ;  what  (loethe  calls  'the 
open  secret.'     "Which  is  the  great  secret.'"  asks  one  - 
"I  he  open  secret,"- open   to  all,  seen  by  almost    none - 
I  hat  divme  mystery,  which  lies  everywhere  in  all  Hein.^s 
'the  Divme   Idea  of   the  World,   that  which    lies    at    the' 
bottom  of  Appearance,'  as  Fichte  styles  it;  of  which  all  30 
Appearance,  from  the  starry  sky  to  the  grass  of  the  field 
but  especially  the  Appearance  of  Man  and  his  work,  is  buJ 
the  vesture,  the  embodiment  that  renders  it  visible      This 


«^ 


1 


CE) 


LECTURRS  ON  HEROES 


\\k 


divine  mystery  h  in  all  times  and  in  all  places ;  veritably 
is.  In  most  times  and  places  it  is  greatly  overlooked  ;  and 
the  Universe,  definable  always  in  one  or  the^ther  dialect, 
as  the  realised  Thought  of  God,  is  considered  a  trivial,  inert, 
commonplace  matter,  —  as  if,  says  the  Satirist,  it  were  a 
dead  thing,  which  some  upholsterer  had  put  together !  It 
could  do  no  good,  at  present,  to  speak  much  about  this ; 
but  it  is  a  pity  for  every  one  of  us  if  we  do  not  know  it,  live 
ever  in  the  knowledge  of  it.  Really  a  most  mournful  pity ; 
10  —  a  failui','  to  live  at  all,  if  we  live  otherwise  ! 

But  now,  1  say,  whoever  may  fort^et  this  divine  mystery, 
the  Fr.  4j,  whether  Prophet  or  Poet,  lias  penetrated  into  it ; 
is  a  man  sent  hither  to  make  it  more  impressively  known  to 
us.  That  always  is  his  message  ;  he  is  to  reveal  that  to  us, 
—  that  sacred  mystery  which  he  more  than  others  lives 
ever  present  with.  While  others  forget  it,  he  knows  it ;  - 
I  might  say,  he  has  been  driven  to  know  it ;  without  con- 
sent asked  of  ///>«,  he  finds  himself  living  in  it,  bound  to 
live  in  it.  Once  more,  here  is  no  Hearsay,  but  a  direct 
20  Insight  and  Belief ;  this  man  too  could  not  help  being  a 
sincere  in.in  !  Whosoever  may  live  in  the  shows'  of  things, 
it  is  for  him  a  necessity  of  nature  to  live  in  the  very  fact  ol 
things.  .V  man  once  more,  in  earnest  with  the  Universe, 
though  all  others  were  but  toying  with  it.  He  is  a  Vates, 
first  of  all,  in  virtue  of  being  sincere.  So  far  Poet  and 
Prophet,  participators  in  the  'open  secret,'  are  one. 

With  respect  to  their  distinction  again:  The  Witt^ 
Prophet,  we  might  say,  has  seized  that  sacred  mystery 
rather  on  the  moral  side,  as  Good  and  Evil,  Duty  and  Pro 
30  hibition ;  the  Vatcs  Poet  on  what  the  Germans  call  th' 
aisthetic  side,  as  Beautiful,  and  the  like.  The  one  wc  nia\ 
call  a  revealer  of  what  we  are  to  do,  the  other  of  what  w' 
are  to  love.     iJut  indeed  these  two  provinces  run  into  one 

»  H'HJshews 


^ 

■  n- 


rt/E  jii.tio  AS  roEi- 


93 


another,  and  cannot  be  disjoined.     The   Prophet  too  has 
h.s  eye  on  what  we  are  to  love :  how  else  shall  we  know 
what  it  IS  we  are  to  do  ?     The  highest  Voice  ever  heard  on 
this  earth'  said  withal,  "Consider  the  lilies  of  the  field- 
they  toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin  :  yet  Solomon  in  all  his 
glory  was  not  arrayed  like  one  of  these-."     A  glance   that 
into  the  deepest  deep  of  IJeauty.     '  The  lilies  of  the  'field  ' 
-dressed  finer  than  earthly  princes,  springing-up-'  there  in 
the  humble  furrow-field  ;  a  beautiful  eye  looking-out "  on  you 
from  the  great  inner  Sea  of  Ifeauty  I     How  could  the  rude  .c 
Karth  make  these,  if  her  Kssence,  rugged  as  she  looks  and 
IS,  were  not  inwardly  Heauty  .'     In  this  point  of  view,  too 
a  saying  of   Goethe's,  which  has    staggered    several,   may 
have   meaning:    'The  I5eautiful,'  he   intimates,  'is  higher 
than  the  (lood ;    the    Heautiful    includes  in  it  the  (lood ' 
Ihe/r//^    Beautiful;    which    however.    [    have    said    some- 
where, 'ditters  from  the  >/.v,-  as  Heaven  does  from   V.mx- 
hall !  •     So  much  for  the  distinction  and  identity  of  J'oet 
and  Prophet.  — 

In  ancient  and  also  in  modern  periods  we  find  a  few  Poets  20 
who  are  accounted  perfect ;  whom   it  were  a  kind  of  trea- 
son to  hnd  fault  with.     This  is  notewoithv  ;  this  is  right  • 
yet  in  strictness  it  is  only  an  illusion.     At  bottom,  cleariv 
enough,  there  is  no  perfect  Poet  !      A  vein  of  Poetry  .vists 
in  the  hearts  of  all  men;   no  man  is  made  alto^rether  of 
J  oetry.     We  are  all  poets  when  we  /,„,/  a  poem  well.     The 
'imagination  that  shudders  at  the   Hell  of  Dante,' is  not 
'^lat  the  same  faculty,  weaker  in  degree,  as  Dante's  own? 
No  one  b.  t  Shakspeare  can  embodv,  out  of  Saxo  aninwuU- 
"V/>-.  the  story  of  Hamlet  as  Shakspeare  did  :   but  everv  one  3c 
models  some  kind  of  story  out  of  it;  every  one  embodies 
•t  better  or  worse.     We  need  not  spend  time  in  defininij. 

»II"ll-||'l.;a„h  -H'H=  re. springing  up 

»  II' IM  IP  looking  out 


t         ' 


■  f 


!j  *' 


!  i 


1 


LKCTUKES  OAT  //f-JtO/iS 


!l.t 


^'  t. 


Where  thirc  is  no  specific  difference,  as  between  round  and 
square,  all  definition  must  be  more  or  less  arbitrary.  A 
man  that  has  so  much  more  of  the  poetic  element  developed 
in  him  as  to  have  become  noticeable,  will  be  called  I'oet  by 
his  neighbours.  World- i'oets  t  10,  those  whom  we  are  t<) 
take  for  perfect  I'oets,  are  »ettl«;d  by  critics  in  :he  same 
way.  One  who  rises  so  f.it  al>ove  the  general  level  of  I'oets 
will,  to  such  and  such  critics,  sf'em  a  Universal  I'oet ;  as 
he  ought  to  do.     And  yet  it  is.  .md  must  be,  an  arbitrary 

10  distinction.  All  PcK'ts  all  men,  have  some  touches  of  the 
Universal ;  no  man  is  wholly  made  of  that.  Most  I'oets 
are  very  soon  forgotten  :  but  not  the  noblest  Shakspeare  or 
Homer  of  them  can  be  remembered yi»/*«'<r,-  —  a  day  comes 
when  hi:  too  is  not ! 

Nevertheless,  you  will  say,  there  must  be  a  difference 
lietween  true  Poetry  and  true  Speech  not  poetical :  what 
is  the  dilTerence  ?  On  this  point  many  things  have  been 
written,  especially  by  late  German  Critics,  some  of  which 
are  not  very  intelligible  at  fi-st.     They  say,  for  example, 

20  that  the  I'oet  has  an  inftnitinte  in  him  ;  communicates  an 
I  lU'ihllii/iki-it,  a  certain  character  of  '  infinitude,'  to  whatso- 
ever he  delineates.  Ihis,  though  not  very  precise,  yet  on 
so  vague  a  matter  is  worth  remembering:  if  well  mediiated, 
some  meaning  will  gradually  be  found  in  it.  For  my  own 
part,  I  find  considerable  meaning  in  the  old  vulgar  distinc- 
tion of  Poetry  being  m.trkal,  having  music  in  it,  being  a 
Song.  Truly,  if  pressed  to  give  a  definition,  one  might  say 
this  as  soon  as  anything  else:  If  your  delineation  be  au- 
thentically musical,  musical  not  in  word  only,  but  in  heart 

30  and  substance,  in  all  the  thoughts  and  utterances  of  it,  in 
the  whole  conception  of  it,  then  it  will  be  poetical  ;  if  not, 
not.  Musical :  how  much  lies  in  that !  A  wwiw// thought 
is  one  spoken  by  a  mind  that  has  p.-  letrated  into  the  inmost 
heart  of  the  thing  ;  detected   the   inmos'    liiystery  of  it, 


''I 
II 


THE  HEKO  AS  POET 


95 


namely  the  w//<>,/i  that  lies  hidden  in  it;  the  inward  har- 
mony of  coherence  which  is  its  soul,  whereby  it  exists,  and 
has  a  right  to  be,'  here  in  this  world.  All  inmost  things, 
we  may  say,  are  melodious;  naturally  utter  themselves  in 
Song.  The  meaning  of  Song  gcjes  deep.  \\'ho  is  there 
that,  in  logical  words,  can  express  the  effect  music  has  on 
us?  A  kind  of  inarticulate  unfathomable  speech,  which 
leads  us  to  the  edge  of  the  Inlinite,  and  lets  us  for  moments 
gaze  into  that ! 

Nay  all  speech,  even  the  commonest  speech,  has  some-  ro 
thing  of  song  in  it :  not  a  parish  in  the  world  but  has  its 
parish-accent;-  the  rhythm  or  /////.    to  which  the  jK'ople 
there  sing  what  they  have  to  say  !     Accent  is  a  kind  of 
chanting  =*;  all  men  have  accent  of  their  own,       though 
they  only  notia-  that  of  others.     Observe  too  how  all  pas- 
sionate language  does  of  itself  become  musical,  —  with  a 
liner  nmsic  than  the  mere  accent ;   the  siK-ech  of  a   man 
even  in  zealous  anger  becomes  a  chant,'  a  song.     All  deep 
things  are  Song.      It  seems  somehow  the  very  central  es- 
sence of  us.  Song ;  as  if  all  the  rest  were  but  wrappages  and  20 
hulls  !      The  primal  element  of  us ;  of  us,  and  of  all  things. 
I'he  Greeks  fabled  of  Sphere-Harmonies  :  it  was  the  feeling 
they  had  of  the  inner  structure  of  Nature;  that  the  soul  of 
all  her  voices  and  utterances  was  perfect  music.     Poetry, 
therefore,  we  will  call  mitUinl  Thought.     The  Poet  is  he  who 
thinks  in  that  manner.     At  bottom,  it  turns  still  on  power 
of  intellect  ;  it  is  a  man's  sincerity  and  depth  of  vision  that 
makes  him  a  Poet.     See  deep  enough,  and  you  see  music- 
ally ;  the  heart  of  Nature  being  everywhere  music,  if  you 
can  only  reach  it.  30 

The  Witcs  Poet,  with  his  melodious  Apocalypse  of  Nature, 
M-ems  to  hold  a  jioor  rank  among  us,  in  comparison  with 


>  Jl'  II-' Ir. 


-  tC  M-  IPdiauming 
^  li'  II    ITchaunt 


I        j^   "^ 


MICROCOPY   RESOIUTION   TBST  CHART 

(ANSI  and  ISO  TEST  CHART  No.  2) 


1.0 


150 


|Z8 

14.0 


21 
2.2 

1.8 


^    APPLIED  \M/^CS 


1653   East    Main   Street 

Rochester    Ne,  York        14609       USA 

(716;   482  -  0300  -  Phone 

(716)    288-5989  -Fox 


/'  'If^, 


96 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


,t  ' 


!J  * 


the  Vates  Prophet ;  his  function,  and  our  esteem  of  him  for 
his  function,  aliice  slight.  'I'he  Hero  taken  as  Divinity  ; 
the  Hero  taiien  as  Prophet ;  then  next  the  Hero  taken  only 
as  Poet :  does  it  not  look  as  if  our  estimate  of  the  (Ireat 
Man,  epoch  after  epoch,  were  continually  diminishing? 
We  take  him  first  for  a  god,  then  for  one  god-inspired  ;  and 
now  in  the  next  stage  of  it,  his  most  miraculous  word  gains 
from  us  only  the  recognition  that  he  is  a  Poet,  beautiful 
verse-maker,  man  of  genius,  or  suchlike'! — It  looks  so; 
lo  but  I  persuade  myself  that  intrinsically  it  is  not  so.  If  we 
consider  well,  it  will  perhaps  appear  that  in  man  still  there 
is  the  same  altogether  peculiar  admiration  for  the  Heroic 
Gift,  by  what  name  soever  called,  that  there  at  any  time 


30 


was.* 

I  should  say,  if  we  do  not  now  reckon  a  Great  Man 
literally  divine,  it  is  that  our  notions  of  (iod,  of  the  supreme 
unattainable  Fountain  of  Splendour,  Wisdom  and  He'-'^ism, 
are  ever  rising  higher;  not  altogether  that  our  revt  .-nee 
for  these  qualities,  as  manifested  in  our  like,  is  getting 
o  lower.  This  is  worth  taking  thought  of.  Sceptical  Dilet- 
tantism, the  curse  of  these  ages,  a  curse  which  will  not  last 
forever,  does  indeed  in  this  the  highest  province  of  human 
things,  as  in  all  provinces,  make  sad  work;  and  in  cur 
reverence  for  great  men,  all  crippled,  blinded,  paralytic  as 
it  is,  comes  out  in  poor  plight,  hardly  recognisable.  Men 
worship  the  shows ''  of  great  men  ;  the  most  disbelieve  that 
there  is  any  reality  of  great  men  to  worship.  The  drear- 
iest, fatalest*  faith;  believing  which,  one  would  literally 
despair  of  human  things.  Nevertheless  look,  for  example, 
Napoleon  !  A  Corsican  lieutenant  of  artillery ;  that  is 
:  show  ^  of  him :  yet  is  he  not  obeyed,  worshipped  after 

»  H'  H'  H3  such  like  »  H=  H^  shews 

2  no  paragraph  in  W  H=  W  *  H^  fatallest 

6  H^  H^  shew 


i   », 


r 


TIN:    nr.KO    AS  POET 


97 


his  sort,  as  all  the  Tiaraed  and  Diademed  of  the  world  put 
together  could  not  be?     Hi-.h  Duchesses,'  and  ostlers  of 
inns,  gather  round  the  Scottish  rustic,  liurns  ;    -a  strange 
feeling  dwelling  in  each  that  they  never  heard  a  man  like 
this;  that,  on  •^  the  whole,  this  '  is  the  man  !      In  the  scc.vt 
heart  of  these  people  it  still  dimly   reveals  itself,   thou-h 
there  is  no  accredited  way  of  uttering  it  at  present,  th'iit 
this  rustic,  with  his  black  brows  and  Hashing  sun-eves,  and 
strange  words  moving  laughter  and  tears,  is  of  a  dignitvfar 
beyond  all  others,  incommensurable  with  all  others.      Do  lo 
not  we  feel  it  so  ?     IJut  now,  were  Dilettantism,  Scepticism, 
Triviality,  and  all  that  sorrowful  brood,  cast-out  *  of  us,  — 
as,  by  God's  blessing,  they  shall  one  day  be  ;  were  faith  in 
the  shows »  of  things  entirely  swept-out,"  replaced  by  clear 
faith  in  the  thhv^s,  so  that  a  man  acted  on  the  impulse  of 
that  only,  and  counted  the  other  non-extant;  what  a  new 
livelier  feeling  towards  this  liurns  were  it ! 

Nay  here  in  these  ages,  such  as  they  are,  have  we  not 
two  mere  Poets,  if  not  deified,  yet  we  may  say  beatified  ? 
Shakspeare  and  Dante  are  Saints  of  Poetry;  really,  if  we  20 
will  think  of  it,  avionisc,/,'  so  that  it  is  impiety  to' meddle 
with  them.  The  unguided  instinct  of  the  world,  working 
across  all  these  perverse  inii;ediments.  has  arrived  at  such 
result.  Dante  and  Shakspeare  are  a  peculiar  Two.  'I'liey 
dwell  apart,  in  a  kind  of  royal  solitude ;  none  cHjual,  none 
second  to  them:  in  the  general  feeling  of  the  world,  a 
certain  transcendentalism,  a  glory  as  of  complete  perfec- 
tion, invests  these  two.  They  cvr  canonised,"  though  no 
Pope  or  Cardinals  took  hand  in  doing  it  !  Sucn,  in^'spite 
of  '-    ry  perverting  influence,  in  the  most  unheroic  times,  30 


»  H'  H»  \V  duchesses 
=  H'  IP  that  on 
3  H'  IP  whole  this 
*  IP  IP  IP  cast  out 


'  IP  H3  shews 
•■  IP  IP  Il'swepfou^ 
■  IP  IP  H'  ca>w,tizfd 
'"  H'  IP  IP  canonized 


ii|     ^1 


s!| 


I 

"J 
*' 


98 


LECTIKES   ON  llEKOES 


is  still  our  indestructible  reverence  for  heroism.  We  will 
look  a  little  at  these  Two,  the  I'oet  l),\nte  and  the  I'oet 
Shakspeare :  Avhat  little  it  is  permitted  us  to  say  here  of 
the  Hero  as  Poet  will  most  fitly  arrange  itself  in  that 
fashion. 


i  \ 


Many  volumes  have  been  written  by  way  of  commentary 
on  Dante  and  his  Book;  yet,  on  the  whole,  with  no  great 
result.  His  Biography  is,  as  it  were,  irrecoverably  lost  for 
us.     An  unimportant,  wandering,  sorrowstricken  man,  not 

10  much  note  was  taken  of  him  while  he  lived  ;  and  the  most 
of  that  has  vanished,  in  the  long  space  that  now  intervenes. 
It  is  fiv-j  centuries  since  he  ceased  writing  and  living  here 
After  all  commentaries,  the  Book  itself  is  mainly  what  we 
know  of  him.  The  Book  ;  —  and  one  might  add  that  Por- 
trait commonly  attributed  to  Giotto,  which,  looking  on  it, 
you  cannot  help  inclining  to  think  genuine,  whoever  did  it. 
To  me  it  is  a  most  touching  face ;  perhaps  of  all  faces  that 
I  know,  the  most  so.  Lonely '  there,  painted  as  on  ^  va- 
cancy, with  the  simple  laurel  wound  round  it ;  the  death- 

20  less  sorrow  and  pain,  the  known  victory  which  is  also 
df^athless;  — significant  of  the  whole  history  of  Dante!  I 
think  it  is  the  mournfulest '"  face  th.it  ever  was  painted  from 
reality ;  an  altogether  tragic,  heart-affecting  face.  There 
is  in  it,  as  foundation  of  it,  the  softness,  tenderness,  gentle 
affection  as  of  a  child  ;  but  all  this  is  as  if  congealed  into 
sharp  contradiction,  into  abnegation,  isolation,  proud  hope- 
less pain.  A  soft  ethereal  soul  looking-out  ^  so  stern,  im- 
placable, grim-trenchant,  as  from  imprisonment  of  thick- 
ribbed  ice !     Withal  it  is  a  silent  pain  too,  a  silent  scornful 

3°  one:  the  lip  is  curled  in  a  kind  of  godlike  disdain  of  the 
thing  that  is  eating-oul    his  heart,*  —  as  if  it  were  withal 


'  li'  IJlank  -i  \V  i.ainted  uii 

Mr  IF  IP  looking  out 


"'  \\^  mournfullest 

5  II'  IP  IP  eating  out 


K:     A 


THE   JIEKO   AS  POET 


99 


a  mean  insignificant  thing,  as  if  he  whom  it  had  power  to 
torture  and  strangle  were  greater  than  it.  The  face  of  one 
wholly  in  protest,  and  life-long  unsurrendering  battle, 
against  the  world.  Affection  all  converted  into  indig- 
nation: an  implacable  indignation;  slov .  equable,'  silent,' 
like  that  of  a  god  !  The  eye  too,  it  looks-out  -  as  in  a  kind 
of  surprise,  a  kind  of  inquiry,  Why  the  world  was  of  such 
a  sort.'  This  is  Dante:  so  he  looks,  this  'voice  of  ten 
silent  centuries,'  and  sings  us  'his  mystic  unfathomable 
scng.'  ,0 

The  little  that  we  know  of  Dante's  Life  corresponds  well 
enough  with  this  Portrait  and  this  Book.  He  was  born  at 
Florence,  in  the  upper  class  of  society,  in  the  year  1265. 
His  education  was  the  best  then  going;  much  school- 
divinity,  Aristotelean  logic,  some  Latin  classics,  —  no  in- 
considerable insight  into  certain  provinces  of  things :  and 
Dante,  with  his  earnest  intelligent  nature,  we  need  not 
doubt,  learned  better  than  most  all  that  was  learnable. 
He  has  a  clear  cultivated  understanding,  and  of  great 
subtlety ;  this  best  fruit  of  education  he  had  contrived  to  20 
realise «  from  these  scholastics.  He  knows  accurately  and 
well  what  lies  close  to  him  ;  but,  in  sucli  a  time,  without 
printed  books  or  free  intercourse,  he  could  not  knov  well 
what  was  distant :  the  small  clear  light,  most  luminous  for 
what  is  near,  breaks  itself  into  singular  chiaroscuro  striking 
on  what  is  far  oil.  This  was  Dante's  learning  from  the 
schools.  In  life,  he  had  gone  through  the  usual  destinies ; 
been  twice  out  campaigning  as  a  soldier  for  the  Florentine 
State,  been  on  e  .ssy  ;  had  in  his  thirty-fifth  year,  by 
natural  gradation  of  talent  and  service,  become  one  of  the  30 
Chief  Magistrates  of  Florence.  He  had  met  in  boyhood  a 
certain  Beatrice  Portinari,  a  beautiful  little  girl  of  his  own 

*  1  H'  IPequable.itnplaLahl.-,  silent  ^  M'  \\-  W  luoks  out 

•'  II'  JP  IPrcaluc 


i    .11 


i:i 


»*1J 


100 


HiCTUhKS  OX  hkkoes 


age  and  rank,  and  grown-up  *  thenceforth  in  partial  sight 
of  her,  in  some  distant  intercourse  with  her.  All  readers 
know  his  graceful  affecting  account  of  this  :  and  then  of 
their  being  parted  ;  of  her  being  wedd"d  to  another,  and 
of  her  death  soon  after.  She  makes  a  gi  ,:at  figure  in  Dante's 
Poem;  seems  to  have  made  a  great  figure  in  his  life.  Of 
all  beings  it  might  seem  as  if  she,  held  apart  from  him,  far 
apart  at  last  in  the  dim  Eternity,  were  the  only  one  he  had 
ever  with  his  whole  strength  of  affection  loved.  She  died  : 
'o  Dante  himself  was  wedded ;  but  it  seems  not  happily,  far 
from  happily.  I  fancy,  the  rigorous  earnest  man,  with 
'■  's  keen  excitabilities,  was  not  altogether  easy  to  make 
happy. 

We  will  not  complain  of  Dante's  miseries:  had  all  gone 
right  Yith  him  as  he  wished  it,  he  might  have  been  Prior, 
PodestJl,  or  whatsoever  they  call  it,  of  Florence,  well  ac- 
cepted among  neighbours,  —  and  the  world  had  wanted  one 
of  the  most  notable  words  ever  spoken  or  sung.  Florence " 
would  have  had  "  another  prosperous  Lord  Mayor;  and  the 
20  ten  dumb  centuries  continued  voiceless,  and  the  ten  other 
listening  centuries  (for  there  will  be  ten  of  them  and  more) 
had  no  Divina  Commcdia  to  hear  !  We  will  complain  of 
nothing.  A  nobler  destiny  was  appointed  for  this  Dante ; 
and  he,  struggling  like  a  man  led  towards  death  and  cruci- 
fixion, could  not  help  fulfilling  it.  Give  him  the  choice  of 
his  happiness  !  He  knew  not,  more  than  we  do,  what  was 
really  happy,  what  was  really  miserable. 

In  Dante's  Priorship,  the  Guelf-(ihibelline,  Bianchi-Neri, 
or  some  other  confused  disturbances  rose  to  such  a  height, 
30  that  Dante,  whose  party  had  seemed  the  stronger,  was 
with  his  friends  cast  unexpectedly  forth  into  banishment ; 
doomed  thenceforth  to  a  life  of  woe  and  wandering.  His 
property  was  ail  confiscated  and  more ;  he  had  the  fiercest 
»  H'  IP  W  grown  up  22  H'  H»  Florence  had 


THE   UKKO  AS  POET 


101 


feeling  that  it  was  entirely  unjust,  nefarious  in  the  sight  of 
God  and  man.  He  tried  what  was  in  him  to  get  reinstated  ; 
tried  even  by  warlike  surprisal,  with  arms  in  his  hand  :  but 
it  would  not  do ;  bad  only  had  become  worse.  There  is  a 
record,  I  believe,  still  extant  in  the  Florence  Archives, 
dooming  this  Dante,  wheresoever  caught,  to  be  burnt  alive. 
Burnt  alive ;  so  it  stands,  they  say  :  a  very  curious  civic 
document.  Another  curious  document,  some  considerable 
number  of  years  later,  is  a  letter  of  Dante's  to  the  Floren- 
tine Magistrates,  written  in  answer  to  a  milder  proposal  of  lo 
theirs,  that  he  should  return  on  condition  of  apologising ' 
and  paying  a  tine.  He  answers,  with  fixed  stern  pride: 
"  If  I  cannot  return  without  calling  myself  guilty,  I  will 
never  x<i\.\xxn,  nutu/uam  rcvcrtar.'''' 

For  Dante  there  was  now  no  home  in  this  world.  He 
wandered  from  patron  to  patron,  from  place  to  place ;  prov- 
ing, in  his  own  bitter  words,  '  How  hard  is  the  path,  Come 
c  tiuro  calk:  '{"he  wretched  are  not  cheerful  company. 
Dante,  poor  and  banished,  with  his  proud  earnest  nature, 
with  his  moody  humours,  was  not  a  man  to  conciliate  men.  20 
I'etrarch  reports  of  him  that  being  at  (an  della  Scala's 
court,  and  blamed  one  day  for  his  gloom  and  taciturnity, 
he  answered  in  no  courtier-like  way.  Della  Scala  stood 
among  his  cou.  tiers,  with  mimes  and  butToons  {tubulonrs  ac 
liistriones)  making  him  heartily  merry;  when  turning  to 
Dante,  he  said  :  "  Is  it  not  strange,  now,-  that  this  poor 
fool  should'  make  himself  so  entertaining';  while  you,  a 
wise  man,  sit  there  day  after  day,  and  have  nothing  to 
amuse  us  with  at  all .'  "  Dante  answered  bitterly  :  "  No, 
not*  strange;  your  Highness  is  to  recollect  the   I'roverb,*  30 

>  H'  W  W  apologizing  2  H'  JP  strange  now 

*  "  H'  IP  siiould  do  so  much  to  amuse  us, 

*  *  II'  it  is  not  strange,  if  you  think  of  the  I'roverb, 

H"  it  is  not  strange  ;  you  are  to  recollect  the  Proverb, 


i  1  i 


ji' 


:     I 


102 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


W  r; 


Li/:e  to  //^t- ,"  — given  the  amuser,  the  amusee  must  also 
be  given !  Such  a  man,  with  his  proud  silent  ways,  with 
his  sarcasms  and  sorrows,  was  not  made  to  succeed  at 
court.  By  degrees,  it  came  to  be  evident  to  him  that  he 
had  no  longer  any  resting-place,'  or  hope  of  benefit,  in  this 
earth.  The  earthly  world  had  cast  him  forth,  to  wander, 
wander;  no  living  heart  to  love  him  now;  for  his  sore 
miseries  there  was  no  solace  here. 

The  deeper  naturally  would  the  Eternal  World  impress 
'o  itself  on  him;  that  awful  reality  over  which,  after  all,  this 
Time-world,  with  its  Florences  and  banishments,  only  flutters 
as  an  unreal  shadow.     Florence  thou  shalt  never  see  :  but 
Hell  and  Purgatory  and    Heaven   thou  shalt  surely  see! 
What  is  Florence,  Can  della  Scala,  and  the  World  and  Life 
altogether?    Eternitv:  thither,  of  a  truth,  not  elsewhither, 
art  thou  and  all  things  bound  !      The  great  soul  of  Dante, 
homeless  on  earth,  made  its  home  more  and  more  in  that 
awful   other  world.     Naturally   his  thoughts  brooded  on 
that,  as  on  the  one  fact  important  for  him.     Bodied  or  bodi- 
20  less,  it  is  the  one  fact  important  for  all  men  :  —  but  to  Dante, 
in  that  age,  it  was  bodied   in  fixed  certainty  of  scientific 
shape ;  he  no  more  doubted  of  that  Malcbolge  Pool,  that  it 
all  lay  there  with  its  gloomy  circles,  with  its  alii guai,  and 
that  he  himself  should  see  it,  than  we  doubt  that  we  should 
see  Constantinople  if  we  went  thither.      Dante's  heart,  long 
filled  with  this,  brooding  over  it  in  speechless  thought  and 
awe,  bursts  forth  at  length  into  '  mystic  unfathomable  song ; ' 
and  this  his  Divine  Comedy,  the   most   remarkable   of  all 
modern  Books,  is  the  result.* 

It  must  have  been  a  great  solaceuient  to  Dante,  and  was, 

as  we  can  see,  a  proud  thought  for  him  at  times.  That  he, 

here  in  exile,  could  do  this  work ;  that  no  Florence,  nor  no 

man  or  men,  could  hinder  him  from  doing  it,  or  even  much 

^  H»  H'  IP  resting  place  2  no  paragraph  ,«  11'  IF  H^ 


30 


/'///;  HERO  AS  roET 


103 


l>clp  h.m  m  doing  it.      He  knew  too,  partly,  that  ,t  was 
great;  the  greatest  a  man  could  do.     Mf  thou  follow  thy 
star,    S.  tu  segui  tua  stc/u,:       so  could   the   Hero,  in  his 
orsakenness,  in  his  e.xtren.e   need,   still   say   to    himself: 
hollow   thou   thy  star,  thou  sh.ilt   not  fail   of  a  glorious 
haven    !"     The   labour    of  writing,   we  find,   and   indeed 
could  know  otherwise,  was  great  and  painful  for  him  •  he 
says,  I  h.s  liook,  'which  has  made  me  lean  for  many  years  ' 
Ah  yes,  ,t  was  won,  all  of  it,  with  pain  and  sore  toil,    -  not 
•n  sport,  hut   in  grim  earnest.      His  IJook,  as  indeed  most  .o 
good  Looks  are,  has  been  written,  in  n,any  senses,  with  his 
heart  s  blood.      It  is  his  whole  history,  this  liook.     He  died 
after  f.n.shing  it;  not  yet  very  old,  at  the  age  of  fifty-six- 
--  broken-hearted  rather,  as  is  said.      He  lies  buried  in  his' 
death-c.ty  Ravenna:   Hie  ch.oior  Dantcs  p,Unis  e.torris  ah 
ons.      I  he  Florentines  begged  back  his  body,  in  a  century 
alter  ;  the  Ravenna  people  would  not  give  it.     "  Here  am  I 
Dante  laid,  shut-out  -  from  my  native  shores." 

I  said,  Dante's  Poem  was  a  .Song  :  it  is  Tieck  who  calls 
1      a  mystic  unfathomable  .Song; '  and  such  is  literally  the  ^c 
chanacter  of  it.     Col-  -marks  very  pertinently  some- 

where, that  wherever  :  a  sentence  nmsically  worded, 

of  true  rhythm  and  n,  .  .he  words,  there  is  something 

deep  and  good  in  th.  .ning  too.  For  body  and  souK 
word  and  .dea.  go  strangely  together  here  as  everywhere. 
Song:  we  said  before,  it  was  the  Heroic  of  Speech!  All 
-'/'/loems,  Homer's  and  the  rest,  are  authenticallv  .Songs. 
I  would  say,  in  strictness,  that  all  right  Poems  a're  ;  tlmt 
whatsoever  is  not  su.,  is  properly  no   Poem,  but  a  piece  of 

rose  cra,nped  into  jingling  lines,       to  the  great  injury  of  30 
the  grammar,  to  the  great  grief  of  the  reader,  for  most  part  ' 
V^hat  we  want  to  get  at  is  the  t/n>u./,f  the  man  h.ad,  if  he 

'"'''«'*^^"  ^'H' IP  IP  shut  out 


'a.  ' 

1*^1  it 

Uk.J  ..i 


ir  m 


UH 


/./•CTCk'hs  ox  ///:h'o/:s 


hiu 


had  any :  why  should  he  twist  it  into  jinjj;le,  if  he  foulii 
speak  it  out  plainly  ?  It  is  only  when  the  heart  of  him  is 
rapt  into  true  passion  of  melody,  and  the  very  tones  of 
him,  according  to  ('oieridj;e\  remark,  become  nmsical  by 
the  greatness,  depth  and  music  of  his  Uioiijjhts,  tiiat  we  can 
give  him  right  to  rhyme  and  sing ;  that  we  call  him  a  Poet, 
and  listen  to  him  as  the  Heroic  of  S|)eakers,  —  whose  s|)eech 
is  Song.  Pretenders  to  this  are  many  ;  and  to  an  earnest 
reader,  I  doubt,  it  is  for  most   part  a  very  melanciioly,  not 

10  to  say  an  insujjportable  business,  that  of  reading  rhyme  ! 
Rhyme  that  had  no  inward  necessity  to  be  rhymed ;  —  it 
ought  to  have  told  us  plainly,  without  any  jingle,  what  it 
was  aiming  at.  I  would  advise  all  men  who  uin  speak 
their  thought,  not  to  sing  it  ;  to  undei-stand  that,  in  a  .serious 
time,  among  serious  men,  there  is  no  vocation  in  them  for 
singing  it.  Precisely  as  we  love  the  true  song,  and  are 
charmed  by  it  as  by  something  divine,  so  shall  we  hate  the 
false  .song,  and  account  it  a  mere  wooden  noise,  a  thing 
hollow,  superfluous,  altogetlier  an    insincere  and  offensive 

20  thing. 
v>  I  give  Dante  my  highest  praise  when  I  say  of  his  Divhw 
Comciiy  that  it  is,  in  all  .senses,  genuinely  a  Song.  In  the 
very  sound  of  it  there  is  ^  i\nito  J'cnito ;  it  proceeds  as  by 
a  chant.'  The  language,  his  simple  tcrza  ritna,  doubtless 
helped  him  in  this.  One  reads  along  naturally  with  a  sort 
of  li/t.  But  I  add,  that  it  could  not  be  otherwise  ;  for  the 
essence  and  material  of  the  work  are  them.selves  rhythmic. 
Its  depth,  and  rapt  passion  and  sincerity,  makes  it  musical ; 
—  go  tk,  *•  enough,  there  is  music  everywhere.     A  true  inward 

30  symmetry,  what  one  ca'.s  an  architectural  harmony,  reigns 
in  it,  proportionates  it  all :  architectural ;  which  also  par 
takes  of  the  character  of  music.  The  three  kingdoms, 
InfermK  Pttrgaforio^  Piinidiso,  look-out  -'  on  one  another  like 

1  H"  11^  W  chaunt  -  IP  H»  IP  look  out 


IHI:   llh.KO  AS  j'o/:r 


105 


compartments   of   a   yrcal   Ldificf;   .1  ;,'rf,it    su|X!rnatural 
world-cathedral,    |)ilcd-u|)'    there,    stern,    solemn,    awful; 
Dante's  World  of  Souls!     It  is,  at  bottom,  the  sman-if  o( 
all  Poems ;  sincerity,  here  too,  we  find  to  be  the  measure 
of  worth.     It  came  deep  out  of  the  author's  'uMrt  of  hearts  ; 
and  it  goes  deep,  and  through  long  generations,  into  ours. 
The  people  of  Verona,  when  they  saw  him  on  the  streets, 
used  10  say,  "  /;,vv>r /  /'  //,//// ,//'  /■  s/,i/.>  „//'  liifttno,  See,  there 
is  the  man  that  was  in   Hell!"     Ah  yes,  he  had  been  in 
Hell ;  —  in  Hell  enough,  in  long  severe  sorrow  and  struggle;  10 
as  the  like  of  him  is  pretty  sure  to  have  been.     Comme- 
dias  that  comeout '  -//,/>/<•  are  not  accomplished  otherwise, 
rhought,  true  labour  of  any  kind,  highest  virtue  itself,  is  it 
not  the  daughter  of  I'ain  ?     Horn  as  out  of  the  black  whirl- 
wind ;— true  effort,  in  f.ict,  as  of  a  captive  struggling  to 
free  himself:  that   is    Thought.     In    all   ways  we  are  'to 
l)ecome  perfect  through  suffam^r,'  _.  jjut^  ^^  j  ^^^^  ^^  ^^^^^ 
known  to  me  is  so  elaborated  ;'s  this  of  Dante's.      It  has 
all  been  as  if  molten,  in  the  hottest  furnace  of  his  soul.     It 
had  made  him  'lean'  for  maiy  years.     Not   the  general  ao 
whole  only ;  every  compartment  of  it  is  worked-out,  with 
intense  earnestness,  into  truth,  int)  clear  visuality.     Each 
answe.  .  to  the  other;  each  fits  s  place,  like  a  marble 

stone  accurately  hewn  and  polished.  1 1  is  the  soul  of  Dante, 
and  in  this  the  soul  of  the  middle  ages,  rendered  forever 
rhythmically  visible  there.  No  light  task ;  a  right  intense 
one.   but  a  task  which  is  (/o/tc 

Perhaps  one  would  say,  intnisity,  with  the  much  that 
depends  on  it,  is  the  prevailing  character  of  Dante's 
genius.  Dante  does  not  come  before  us  as  a  large  catholic  30 
mind ;  rather  as  a  narrow,  and  even  sc  arian  mind  :  it  is 
partly  the  fruit  of  his  age  and  position,  but  partly  too  of 
his  own  nature.  His  greatness  has,  in  all  sen  js,  concen- 
'  H'  \V  \V  piled  up  -i  H'  n»  HHome  out 


l\\     \ 


i  f{ 


106 


LEcrv/a-a  on  f/AA'u/-:s 


i^: 


\t      1 


I  ! 


it  ti 


tered  itself  into  fiery  emphasis  and  depth.  He  is  world-great 
not  because  he  is  world-wide,  but  because  he  is  world-deep. 
Through  all  objects  he  pierces  as  it  were  down  into  the  heart 
of  Being.  I  know  nothing  so  intense  as  Dante,  ('onsider, 
for  example,  to  begin  with  the  outermost  development  of 
his  intensity,  consider  how  he  paints.  He  has  a  great 
power  of  vision  ;  seizes  the  very  tyjie  of  a  thing ;  presents 
that  and  nothing  more.  You  remember  that  first  view  he 
gets  of  the  Hall  of  Dite :  rei/  pinnacle,  redhot  cone  of  iron 

10  glowing  through  the  dim  immensity  of  gloom;-  so  vivid, 
so  distinct,  visible  at  once  and  forever  !  It  i  -.  as  an  emblem 
of  the  whole  genius  of  Dante.  I'here  is  a  brevity,  an  abrupt 
precision  in  him:  Tacitus  is  not  briefer,  more  condensed; 
and  then  in  Dante  it  seems  a  natural  condensation,  spon- 
taneous to  the  man.  One  smiting  word  ;  and  then  there  is 
silence,  nothing  more  said.  His  silence  is  more  eloquent 
than  words.  It  is  strange  with  what  a  sha.p  decisive  grace 
he  snatches  the  true  likeness  of  a  matter :  cuts  into  the 
matter  as  with  a  pen  of  fire.     Plutus,  the  blustering  giant, 

so  collapses  at  Virgil's  rebuke;  it  is  'as  the  sails  sink,  the 
mast  being  suddenly  broken.'  Or  that  poor  Brunetto  Latini,' 
A'ith  the  C0//()  aspettOy  'face  bakeii^'  parched  brown  and  lean  ; 
and  the  '  fiery  snow  '  that  falls  on  them  there,  a  '  fiery  snow- 
without  wind,'  slow,  deliberate,  never-ending  !  Or  the  lids 
of  those  Tombs ;  square  sarcophaguses,  in  that  silent  dim- 
burning  Hall,  each  with  its  Soul  in  torment ;  the  lids  laid 
open  there ;  they  are  to  be  shut  at  the  Day  of  Judgment 
through  Kternity.  And  how  Farinata  rises ;  and  how 
Cavalcante  falls —  at  hearing  of  his  Son       v'  the  past  tense 

30  '///^ ' !  I  The  very  movements  in  Dante  have  something 
brief  ;  swift,  decisive,  almost  military.  Lt  is  of  the  inmost 
essence  of  his  genius  this  sort  of  painting.  The  fiery,  swift 
Italian  nature  of  the  man,  so  silent,  passionate,  with  its 

•  IP  W  IP  Sordello 


THE  ///:ko  .is  poet 


107 


quick  abrupt    movements,   it,  nilent   'pale  rages/  Hi^^ak, 
Itself  'T  these  things. 

For  though  this  of  painting  is  one  of  the  outermost 
deyelopments  of  a  man.  it  comes  like  all  else  from  the  essen- 
t.al  acuity  of  hi:n  ;  it  is  physiognomical  of  the  whole  man 
J.nd  a  man  whose  words  paint  you  a  likeness,  you  have 
found  a  man  worth  something;  mark  his  manner  of  doing 
.t.  as  very  characteristic  of  him.  In  the  hrst  place,  he 
could  not  have  discerned  the  object  at  all.  or  seen  the  vital 

wi^'  ir    '''H""^"  ''  u"''  "'^'^  "''*  "'•'>•  ^■^^"'  W''/>'"--/'  'o 
witli  a,  -  had  sympathy  in  him  to  hcMow  on  objects      Me 

must  have  been  sina;.  about  it  too;  sir.    re  and  syn.p.^. 
thet.c:  a  man  without  worth  cannot  give  you  the  likeness 
of  any  object ;  he  dwells  in  vague  outwardness,  fallacy  and 
tr.v.al  hearsay,  about  all  objects.     .And  indeed  may  we  not 
say  that  intellect  altogether  expresses  itself  in  this  power  of 
discerning  what  an   object  is?     Whatscx^ver  of  faculty  . 
man  s  mind  may  have  will  come  out  here.     Is  it  even  of 
business,  a  matter  to  be  done .'     The  gifted  man  is  he  who 
sees  the  essential  point,  and  leaves  all  the  rest  aside  as  sur-  .o 
plusage:  It  is  his  faculty  too.  the  man  o{  businesses  facult, 
that  he  discern  the  true  l.keness,   not  the  false  superficial' 
one,  of  the  thing  h  .  has  got  to  work  in.     And  how  much  of 
morahty  ,s  in  the  kind  of  insight  wc  get  of  anythin--  -the 
eye  seeing  in  all  things  what  it  brought  with  it,  the  '-c.ltv 
of   seeing'!      To  the  mean  eye  all  things   are   triv.."..  I 
certainly  as  to  the  jaundiced  they  are  yellow.      Raphael 
the  Painters  tell  us.  is  the  best  of  all  I'ortrait-painters  withal.' 
Xo  most  gifted  eye  can  e.xhaust  the  significance  of  any 
"p    T"  ,      n'^"'  co'n'Tionest  human  face  there  lies  more  than  30 
Raphael  will  take-away  -  with  him. 

Dante's  painting  is  not  graphic  only,  brief,  true,  and  of  a 
vividness  as  of  tire  in  dark  night ;  taken  on  the  wider  scale. 
»  H'  H»  H'  sympathized  s  w  ,p  1,3  ^^^^  ^^^^ 


h- 


'•  > 


'II. 


hi 


108 


LECTURES  OX  HEROES 


it  is  everyway  noble,  and  the  outcome  of  a  great  soul. 
Francesca  and  her  Lover,  what  qualities  in  that!  A  thing 
woven  as  out  of  rainbows,  on  a  ground  of  eternal  black.  A 
small  flute-voice  of  infinite  wail  speaks  there,  into  our  very 
heart  of  hearts.  A  touch  of  womanhood  in  it  too :  della ' 
bella  pcrsonn,  (he  mi  fit  tolta  ' ;  and  how,  even  in  the  Pit  of 
woe,  it  is  a  solace  that  he'-  will''  never  part  from  her'! 
Saddest  tragedy  in  these  aiti  i;uai.  And  the  racking  winds, 
in  that  acr  Itnino,  whirl  them  away  again,*  to  wail  forever* ! 

10  —  Strange  to  think  :  Dante  was  the  friend  of  his  poor  Fran 
cesca's  father ;  Francesca  herself  may  have  sat  upon  the 
Poet's  knee,  as  a  bright  innocent  little  child.  Infinite  pity, 
yet  also  infinite  rigour  of  law  :  il  is  so  Nature  is  made  ;  it  is 
so  Dante  discerned  that  she  was  made.  What  a  paltry 
notion  is  that  of  his  Divine  Comedy's  being  a  poor  splenetic 
impotent  terrestrial  libel ;  putting  those  into  Hell  whom  he 
could  not  be  avenged-upon  *  on  earth  !  I  suppose  if  ever 
pity,  tender  as  a  mother's,  was  in  the  heart  of  any  man,  it 
was  in  Dante's.     But  a  man  who  does  not  know  rigour  can- 

20  not  pity  either.  His  verv  pity  will  be  cowardly,  egoistic, 
—  sentimentality,  or  little  better.  I  know  not  in  the  world 
an  affection  equal  to  that  of  Dante.  It  is  a  tenderness,  a 
trembling,  longing,  pitying  love :  like  the  wail  of  .^^^olean 
harps,  soft,  soft;  like  a  child's  young  heart ;  —  and  then  that 
stern,  sore-saddened  heart !  These  longings  of  his  towards 
his  Beatrice;  their  meeting  together  in  the  .  aradiso ;  his 
gazing  in  her  pure  transfigured  eyes,  her  that  had  been  puri- 
fied by  death  so  long,  separated  from  him  so  far:  —  one" 


1  1  I P  she  speaks  of  '  qtiesta  formu  ' ;  —  so  innocent 

2  H'  he 

3  3  H*  '  will  never  part  from  her  ' 
*  *  IP  again,  forever 

6  H'  li-  11^  avenged  upon 
6  H'  IP  far  :  ah. 


THE   HE  KG  AS  I'OET 


109 


likens  it  to  the  song  of  angels ;  it  is  among  the  purest  utter- 
ances of  affection,  perhaps  the  very  purest,  that  ever  came 
out  of  a  human  soul. 

For  the  iuteiisc  Dante  is  intense  in  all  things  ;  he  has  got 
into  the  essence  of  all.      His  intellectual  insight  as  paintLr, 
on  occasion  too  as  reasoner,  is  but  the  result  of  all  other 
sorts  of  intensity.     Morally  great,  above  all,  we  must  call 
him ;  it  is  the  beginning  of  all.      His  scorn,  his  grief  are  as 
transcendent  as  his  love;    -as  indeed,  what  are  they  but 
the  imcrse  or  converse  of  his  love  .>     •./  Dio  spincaiti  cJ  a    ic 
m-mici  siii,  Hateful  to  (lod  and  to  the  enemies  of  Clod  :  ' 
lofty  scorn,  unappeasable  silent  reprobation  and  aversion  ; 
'Noil  ragionam  di  lor.  We  will  not  speak  of  tfirm,  look  only 
and  pass.'     Or  think  of  this;  -They  have  not  the  //,;/.•  to 
die,   iXon  han  sprranza  di  wort,:'      One  day,   it   had  risen 
sternly   benign   on  the  scathed   heart   of   l')ante,  that   he, 
wretched,  never-resting,  worn  as  he  was,  would  full  surely 
die;  'that  Destiny  itself  could  not  doom  him  not  to  die'' 
Such  words  are  in  this  man.      For  rigour,  earnestness  and 
depth,  he  is  not  to  be  paralleled  in  the  modern  world ;  to  20 
seek  his  parallel  we  must  go  into  the  Hebrew   Bible,  and 
live  with  the  antique  Prophets  there. 

I  do  not  agree  with  much  modern  criticism,  in  greatly 
preferring  the  /n/rr„o  to  the  two  other  parts  of  the  Divine 
Commedia.  .Such  preference  belongs,  I  imagine,  to  our 
general  Kyronism  of  taste,  and  is  like  to  be  a  transient  feel- 
ing. 'I'he  Puri^'.iforio  and  /',tntdiso.  especially  tli-  former, 
one  would  almost  say,  is  even  more  excellent  than  it.  It 
is  a  noble  thing  that  Purj-atorio.  'Mountain  of  Purifica- 
tion;' an  emblem  of  the  noblest  conception  of  that  age.  30 
If  Sin  is  so  fatal,  and  Hell  is  and  must  be  so  rigorous, 
awful,  yet  in  Repentance  too  is  man 


punt 


pent an ce 


is  the  grand   Christian   act.      ft   is   beautiful   how    Dante 
works  it  out.     The  tremohir  dclP  ondc,  that  'tremblin-r'  of 


..  O 


'\i     .H 


110 


LECTURES  OAT  HEROES 


the  ocean-waves,  under  the  first  pure  gleam  of  morning, 
dawning  afar  on  the  wandering  Two,  is  as  the  type  of  an 
altered  mood.  Hope  has  now  dawned;  never-dying  Hope, 
if  in  company  still  with  heavy  sorrow.  The  obscure 
sojourn  of  damons  and  reprobate  is  underfoot ' ;  a  soft 
breathing  of  penitence  mounts  higher  and  higher,  to  the 
Throne  of  Mercy  itself.  "  I'ray  for  me,"  the  denizens  of 
that  Mount  of  Pain  all  say  to  him.  "Tell  my  Giovanna 
to  pray  for  me,"  my  daughter  Giovanna;    "I   think    her 

10  mother  loves  me  no  more!"  They  toil  painfully  up  by 
that  winding  steep,  '  bent-down  -  like  corbels  of  a  building,' 
some  of  them,  —  orushed-together '^  so  '  for  the  sin  of  pride  ; ' 
yet  nevertheless  in  years,  in  ages  and  *ons,  they  shall  have 
reached  the  top,*  which  is  Heaven's  *  gate,  and  by  Mercy  ^ 
shall  have  been '"  admitted  in.  The  joy  too  of  all,  when 
one  has  prevailed ;  the  whole  Mountain  shakes  with  joy, 
"nd  a  psalm  of  praise  rises,  when  one  soul  has  perfected 
repentance  and  got  its  sin  and  misery  left  behind !  I  call 
all  this  a  noble  embodiment  of  a  true  noble  thought. 

20  But  indeed  the  Three  compartments  mutually  support 
one  another,  are  indispensable  to  one  another.  The  Para- 
diso,  a  kind  of  inarticulate  music  to  me,  is  the  redeeming 
side  of  the  Iiifcnio :  the  Inferno  without  it  were  untrue. 
All  three  make-up"  the  true  Unseen  World,  as  figured  in 
the  Christianity  of  the  Middle  Ages ;  a  thing  forever 
memorable,  forever  true  in  the  essence  of  it,  to  all  men. 
It  was  perhaps  delineated  in  no  human  soul  with  such 
depth  of  veracity  as  in  this  of  Dante's ;  a  man  sent  to  sing 
it,  to  keep  it  long  memorable.     Very  notable  with  what 

3°  brief  simplicity  he  passes  out  of  the  every-day  reality,  into 
the  Invisible  one ;  and  in  the  second  or  third  stanza,  we 


1  II'HMP  underfoot 
«  H'HMIMjent  down 
8  II'  H»H*  crushed  together 


«••  II' IF  top,  Heaven's 
5  6  H'H^  Mercy  been 
«  H'  II»  IP  make  up 


THE  HERO  AS  POET 


HI 


find  ourselves  in  the  World  of  Spirits  ;  and  dwell  there,  as 
among  things  palpable,  indubitable  !  Jo  Dante  they  v>ere 
so ;  the  real  world,  as  it  is  called,  and  its  facts,  was  but  the 
threshold  to  an  infinitely  higher  Fact  of  a  World.  At  bot- 
tom, the  one  was  as  //-^Arnatural  as  the  other.  Has  not 
each  man  a  soul .'  He  will  not  only  be  a  spirit,  but  is  one. 
I  o  the  earnest  Dante  it  is  all  one  visible  Fact ;  he  believes 
it,  sees  it ;  is  the  Poet  of  it  in  virtue  of  that.  Sincerity,  \ 
say  again,  is  the  saving  merit,  now  as  always. 

Dante's  Hell,  Purgatory,  Paradise,  are  a  symbol  withal,  .c 
an    emblematic    representation    of    his    Belief   about    this 
Universe:— some  Critic  in  a  future  age,  like  those  Scan- 
dmavian  ones  the  other  day,  who  has  ceased  altogether  to 
think  as  Dante  did,  may  find  this  too  all  an  'Allegory,' 
perhaps  an  idle  Allegory!     It   is  a  sublime  embodiment, 
or '  sublimest,  of  the  soul  of  (  hristianity.     It  expresses,  as 
in  huge  worldwide-^  architectural  emblems,  how  the  Chris- 
tian Dante  felt  (iood  and  Fvil  to  be  the  two  polar  elements 
of  this    Creation,  on  which  it  all  turns;    that    these  two 
differ  not  hy  p,rj\rahility  ol  one  to  the  other,  but  by  incom-  20 
patibility  absolute  and  infinite ;   that  the  one  is  excellent 
and  high  as  light  and  Heaven,  the  other  hideous,  black  is 
(iehenna  and  the  Pit  of    Hell !      Kverlasting    Justice,  yet 
with   Penitence,  with  everlasting   Pity, -all  Christianism, 
as  Dante  and  the  Middle  Ages  had  it,  is  emblemed  here. 
Kmblemed  :  and  yet,  as  I  urged  the  other  day,  with  what 
entire  truth  of  purpose ;  how  uncc  nscious  of  any  emblem- 
ing !       Hell,   Purgatory,    Paradise:    these  things  were  not 
fashioned  as  emblems ;  was  there,  in  our  Modern  Furopean 
Mind,  any  thought  at  all  of  their  being  emblems!     Were  30 
they  not  indubitable  awful  facts ;  the  whole  heart  of  man 
taking  them   for   practically  true,   all    Nature   everywhere 
confirming  them  ?     So  is  it  always  in  these  things.'    Men 
^  H'  H'  our  2  H'  H»  H'  world-wide 


kit ; 


■»  'Mi 
f*  4  'VI 


rr  , 
Mi 


I 


112 


LECTURES   ON  HEROES 


I 


do  not  believe  an  Allegory.  The  future  Critic,  whatever 
his  new  thought  may  he,  who  considers  this  of  Dante  to 
have  been  all  got-up  *  as  an  Allegory,  will  commit  one  sore 
mistake  !  ~  Paganism  we  recognised  as  a  veracious  expres- 
sion of  the  earnest  awe-struck  feeling  of  man  towards  the 
Universe ;  veracious,  true  once,  and  still  not  without  worth 
for  us.  But  mark  here  the  difference  of  Paganism  and 
Christianism ;  one  great  difference.  Paganism  emblemed 
chiefly  the  Operations  of  Nature ;  the  destinies,  efforts, 
lo  combinations,  vicissitudes  of  things  and  men  in  this  world  ; 
Christianism  emblemed  the  Law  of  Human  Duty,  the 
Moral  Law  of  Man.  One  was  for  the  sensuous  nature:  a 
rude  helpless  utterance  of  the  first  Thought  of  men,  —  the 
chief  recognised  virtue.  Courage,  Superiority  to  Fear.  The 
other  was  not  for  the  sensuous  nature,  but  for  the  moral. 
What  a  progress  is  here,  if  in  that  one  respect  only  !  — 


L    ' 


I  \ 


111 


And  so  in  this  Dante,  as  we  said,  had  ten  silent  centu- 
ries, in  a  very  strange  way,  found  a  voice.  The  Dirtna  Cum 
media  is  of  Dante's  writing ;   yet  in  truth  //  belongs  to  ten 

20  Christian  centuries,  only  the  finishing  of  it  is  Dante's.  So 
always.  The  craftsman  there,  the  smith  with  that  metal  of 
his,  with  these  tools,  with  these  cunning  methods,  —  how 
little  of  all  he  does  is  properly  his  work  !  All  past  invent- 
ive men  work  there  with  him;  —  as  indeed  with  all  of  us, 
in  all  things.  Dante  is  the  spokesman  of  the  Middle  Ages; 
the  Thought  they  lived  by  stands  here,  in  everlasting  music. 
These  sublime  ideas  of  his,  terrible  and  beautiful,  are  the 
fruit  of  the  Christian  Meditation  of  all  the  good  men  who 
had  gone  before  him.     Precious  they  ;  but  also  is  not  he 

30  precious  ?  Much,  had  not  he  spoken,  would  have  been 
dumb ;   not  dead,  yet  living  voiceless. 

On  the  whole,  is  it  not  an  utterance,  this  mystic  Song,  at 

1  H'H'H'got  up 


ivr^^ 


TI/E    HRK'O   AS   /'()/■:/■ 


11? 


once  of  one  of  the 


greatest  human  souis,  and  of  the  highest 
thing  that  Kurope  had  hitherto  reahsed  for  itself  >     (  hris 
t.anism.  as  Dante  sinfjs  it,  is  another  than  Paganism  in  th- 
rude  Norse   n,ind  ;    another    than  « liasiard    Chris.ianism ' 
half-art.culately  spoken  in  the  Arab  Desert  seven-htmdred ' 
years  before  .'-The  noblest  /V-vMnade  .>„/ hitherto  amon.. 
men  is  sung,  and  emblemed-forth  ^'  a!,i,linglv,  bv  one  of  the 
noblest  men.      In  the  one  sense  and   in   the  o'ther,  are  we 
not  right  glad  to  possess  it?     As  1   calculate,  it  mav  last 
yet  for  long  thousands   of   years.      For   the  thing   that   is  ,o 
uttered  from  the  inmost  parts  of  a  man's  soul,  dilTers  alto- 
gether from  what  is  uttered  by  the  outer  part.      The  outer 
IS  of  the  day,  under  the  empire  of  mode;  the  outer  pisses 
away,  ,n  swift  endless  changes  -.  the  inmost  is  the  same  ves- 
terday,  today  and  forever.     True  souls,  in  all  generati;,ns 
of  the  world,  who  look  on  this  Dante,  will   ,i„d   a  brother- 
hood .n  him;  the  deep  sincerity  of  his  thoughts,  his  woes 
and  hopes,  will  speak  likewise  to  their  sinceritv  ;  thev  will 
fee   that  this  Dante  too  was  a  brother.     Napolc-on  in  Saint- 
Helena  ,s  charmed  with  the  genial  veracity  of  old   Homer.  .0 
The  oldest    Hebrew    Prophet,    un<ler  a   vesture   the   most 
diverse  from  ours,  does  yet,  because  he  speaks  from  the 
heart  of  man,  speak  to  all  men's  hearts.      It  is  the  one  sole 
secret  of  continuing  long  memorable.      Dante,  for  depth  of 
sincerity,  is  like  an  antique   Prophet  too,  iiis   words,  like 
theirs,  come  from  his  very  heart.      One  need  not  wonder  if 
It  were  predicted  that  his  Poem  might  be  the  most  endur- 
mg  thing  our  F.rope  has  yet  made  ;  for  nothing  so  endures 
as  a  truly    spoken    word.     All    cathedrals,    pontiticalities. 
brass  and  stone,  and  outer  arrangement «  never  so  lastin^r    ,c 
are  brief  in  comparison  to  an  unfathomable  he..,t-son.^  lik" 
this:  one  feels  as  if  it  might  survive,  sti!]  of  importan'Ie  to 

^  H' 11=  H' seven  hundred  iiU'M^iii        m         ■, 

'^  II'  \l-  arrangement, 


H 

.j.J-sJ'riM 
\^% 

•  r  ^: 


I 

■i 
I 

i     . 


ir- 


lil 


114 


LECTURES   OX  HEROES 


m^      ; 


men,  when  these  had  all  sunk  into  new  irrecognisable  com 
binations,  and  had  ceased  individually  to  be.  Kurope  has 
made  much  ;  great  cities,  great  empires,  encyclopaedias, 
creeds,  bodies  of  opinion  and  practice:  but  it  has  made 
little  of  the  class  of  Dante's  Thought.  Homer  yet  is,  veri- 
tably present  face  to  face  with  every  open  soul  of  us  ;  and 
Greece,  where  is  ///  Desolate  for  thousands  of  years; 
away,  vanished  ;  a  bewildered  heap  of  stones  and  rubbish, 
the  life  and  existence  of  it  all  gone.     Like  a  dream  ;  like 

lo  the  dust  of  King  Agamemnon  !  Greece  was  ;  Greece,  except 
in  the  words  it  spoke,  is  not. 

The  uses  of  this  Dante.'  We  will  not  say  much  about 
his  'uses.'  .V  human  soul  who  has  once  got  into  that 
primal  element  of  Soii\;,  and  sung-forth '  fitly  somewhat 
therefrom,  has  worked  in  the  t/t'/<t/is  of  our  existence  ;  feed- 
ing through  long  times  the  WiQ-roois  of  all  excellent  human 
things  whatsoever,  —  in  a  way  that  'utilities'  will  not  suc- 
ceed well  in  calculating!  We  will  not  estimate  the  Sun  by 
the  quantity  of  gas-light  it  saves  us;  Dante  shall  be  inval- 

20  uable,  or  of  no  value.  One  remark  1  may  make :  the 
contrast  in  this  respect  between  the  Hero-1'oet  and  the 
Hero-Prophet.  In  a  hundred  years,  Mahomet,  as  we  saw, 
had  his  Arabians  at  Grenada  and  at  Delhi;  Dante's 
Italians  seem  to  be  yet  very  much  where  they  were.  .Shall 
we  say,  then,  Dante's  effect  on  the  world  was  small  in 
comparison  ?  Not  so :  his  arena  is  far  more  restricted ; 
but  also  it  is  far  nobler,  clearer ;  perhaps  not  less  but 
more  important.  Mahomet  speaks  to  great  masses  of  men, 
in  the  coarse  dialect  adapted  to  such  ;  a  dialect  filled  with 

30  inconsistencies,  crudities,  follies  :  on  the  great  masses  alonu 
can  he  act,  and  there  with  good  and  with  evil  strangely 
blended.  Dante  speaks  to  the  noble,  the  pure  and  great,  in 
all  times  and  places.     Neither  does  he  grow  obsolete,  as 

1  H'  W  \V  sung  forth 


THE   HERO   AS  roET 


115 


10 


the  other  does.  Dante  hums  as  a  pure  star,  fixed  there  in 
the  firmament,  at  which  the  great  and  the  hijjh  of  all  ages 
kindle  Miemselves:  he  is  the  possession  of  all  the  chosen  of 
the  world  for  uncounted  time.  Dante,  one  calculates,  may 
long  survive  Mahomet.  In  this  way  the  balance  may  be 
made  straight  again. 

But,  at  any  rate,  it  is  not  by  what  is  called  their  effect 
on  the  world  :  v  what  nv  can  judge  of  their  effect  there, 
that  a  man  and  his  work  are  measured.     Effect.'     Influ- 
ence }     Utility  ?     Let  a  man  Jo  his  work ;  the  fruit  of  it 
is  the  care  of  Another  than  he.     It  will  grow  its  own  fruit ; 
and   whether  embodied    in   Caliph    Thrones  and   .\rabian 
Conquests,  so  that  it  'fills  all  Morning  and  Kvening  News- 
papers,' and  all  Histories,  which  are  a  kind   of  distilled 
Newspapers;  or  not  embodied  so  at  all;  — what  matters 
that?     That    is    not   the  real   fruit  of   it!     The    .\rabian 
Caliph,  in  so  far  only  as  he  did  something,  was  something. 
If  the  great  Cause  of  Man,  and  Man's  work  in  (iod's  Earth, 
got  no  furtherance  from  the  Arabian  Caiiph,  then  no  mat- 
ter how  many  scimetars  he  drew,  how  many  gold  piasters  '  20 
pocketed,  and  what  uproar  and  blaring  he  made  in  this 
world, —  //<-  was  but  a  loud-sounding  inanity  and  futility; 
at  bottom,  he  7iHis  not  at  ail.      Let  us  honour  the  great  em- 
pire of  Silmce,  once  more  !      The  boundless  treasury  which 
we  do  not  jingle  in  our  pockets,  or  count  up  and  present 
before  men  !     It  is  perha,.s,  of  all  things,  the  usefulest"  for 
each  of  us  to  do,  in  these  loud  times. 

As  Dante,  the  Italian  man,  was  sent  into  our  world  to 
embody  musically  the  Religion  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the 
Religion  of  our  Modern  Europe,  its  Inner  Life';  so  30 
Shakspeare,  we  may  say,  embodies  for  us  the  Outer 
Life  of  our  Europe  as  developed  then,  its  chivalries, 
Ul' piastres  «  tP  uscfallest 


i  <    :B 


•  I' 


a* 


'f 


\M 


'1 


u. 


116 


l.ECTUKES   OX  IlKKOKS 


courtesies,  humours,  ambitions,  what  practical  way  of 
thinking,  actin;,',  looking  at  the  world,  men  then  had. 
As  in  Homer  we  may  still  construe  Old  (Ireece;  so  in 
Shakspeare  and  Dante,  after  thoc  ids  of  years,  what  our 
modern  '  Kurope  was,  in  i-'aith  and  Practice,  will  still  oe 
legible.  Dante  has  given  us  the  Faith  or  soul;  Shaks- 
jMiare,  in  a  not  less  noble  way,  has  given  us  the  Tractite 
or  body.  'I'his  latter  also  we  were  to  have  ;  a  man  was 
sent  for  it,  the  man  Shakspeare.     Just  when  that  chivalry 

10  way*  of  life  had  reached  its  last  finish,  and  was  on  the 
point  of  breaking  down  into  slow  or  swift  dissolution,  as 
we  now  see  it  everywhere,  this  other  sovereign  Poet,  with 
his  seeing  eye,  with  his  perennial  singing  voice,  was  sent 
to  take  note  of  it,  to  give  long-enduring  record  of  it.  Two 
fit  men :  Dante,  deep,  fierce  as  the  central  fire  of  the 
world;  Shakspeare,  wide,  placid,  far-seeing,  as  the  Sun, 
the  upper  light  of  the  world.  Italy  produced  the  one 
world-voice ;  we  Knglish  had  the  honour  of  producing  the 
other. 

20  Curious  enough  how,  as  it  were  by  mere  accident,  this 
man  came  to  us.  I  think  always,  so  great,  quiet,  complete 
and  self-sufticing  is  this  Shakspeare,  had  the  Warwickshire 
Squire  not  prosecuted  him  for  deer-stealing,  we  had  perhaps 
never  heard  of  him  as  a  Poet !  The  woods  and  skies,  the 
rustic  Life  of  Man  in  Stratford  there,  had  been  enough  for 
this  man !  But  indeed  that  strange  outbudding  of  our 
whole  Knglish  Existence,  which  we  call  the  Elizabethan 
Kra,  did  not  it  too  come  as  of  its  own  accord  }  The  '  Tree 
Fgdrasil '  buds  and  withers  by  its  own  laws,  —  too  deep  for 

30  our  scanning.  \'ft  it  does  bud  and  wither,  and  every 
bough  and  leaf  of  it  is  there,  by  fixed  eternal  laws ;  not  a 
Sir  Thomas  Lucy  but  comes  at  the  hour  fit  for  him.  Curi- 
ous, I  say,  and  not  sufficiently  considered :  how  everything 

1  H'  H»  H^  Modern  2  H«  H*  chivalry-way 


>*  •■'■ 


/•///;  IIKKO  AS  roKi' 


117 


does  cooperate  •  with  all ;  not  a  leaf  rotting  on  the  high- 
way but  is  indissoluble  portion  of  solar  and  stellar  systems; 
no  thought,  word  or  act  of  man  but  has  sprung  withal  out  of 
all  men,  ar.u  works  sooner  or  later,  recognisably  or  irrecogni- 
sably,  on  all  men  !  It  is  all  a  Tree  :  circulation  of  sap  and 
mfluences,  mutual  communication  of  every  minutest  leaf 
with  the  lowest  talon  of  a  root,  with  every  other  greatest 
and  minutest  portion  of  the  whole.  The  Iree  Igdrasil, 
that  has  its  roots  dcwn  in  the  Kingdoms  of  }lela  and 
Death,  and  whose  boughs  overspread  the  highest  Heaven  !—  lo 

In  some  sense  it  may  be  said  that  this  glorious  Kliza- 
bethan  Kra  with  its  Shakspeare,  as  the  outcome  and  Hower- 
age  of  all  which  had  preceded  it,  is  itself  attributable  to 
the  ("atholicism  of  the  Middle  Ages.      The  Christian  Faith, 
which  was  the  theme  of  Dante's  Song,  had  produced  this 
Practical  Life  which  Shakspeare  was  to  sing.      For  Religion 
then,  as  it  now  and  always  is,  was  the  soul  of  Practice  • 
the  primary  vital  fact  in   men's  life.     And  remark  here,  as 
rather  curious,  that  Middle-Age  Catholicism  was  abolished, 
so  far  as  Acts  of  Parliament  could  abolish  it,  before  .Shaks-  20 
peare,  the  noblest  product  of  it,  made  his  appearance.     He 
did  make  his  appearance  nevertheless.     Nature  at  her  own 
time,  with  Catholicism  or  what  else  might  be  necessary, 
sent  him  forth  ;  taking  small  thought  of  Acts  of    Parlia- 
ment.     King-Henrys,-'   Queen-Flizal)eths'   go    their    way; 
and  Nature  too  goes  hers.     Acts  of   Parliament,   on   the' 
whole,    are  small,    notwithstanding   the   noise   thev  make. 
What  Act  of  Parliament,  debate  at  St.  Stephen's,'  on  the 
hustings  or  elsewhere,  was  it  that  brought  this  Shakspeare 
into  bei:.g.>     No  dining  at   Freemasons'  Tavern,  opening  jc 
subscription-lists,  selling  of  shares,  and  infinite  other  jan- 
gling and  true  or  false  endeavoring  !     This  Elizabethan  Era, 


H'  H»  IF  cooperate 


H'  Queen  Elizabeth 


II'  King  Henrys 


'  >i| 


I 


us 


LECTURES  OX  HEROES 


and  all  its  nobleness  and  blessedness,  came  without  proc- 
lamation, preparation  of  ours.  Priceless  Shakspeare  was 
the  free  gift  of  Nature ;  given  altogether  silently ;  —  re- 
ceived altogether  silently,  as  if  it  had  been  a  thing  of  little 
account.  And  yet,  very  literally,  it  is  a  priceless  thing. 
One  should  look  at  that  side  of  matters  too. 

Of  this  .Shakspe-  e  of  ours,  perhaps  the  opinion  one  some- 
times hears  a  little  idolatrously  expressed  is,  in  fact,  the 
right  one ;   I  think  the  best  judgment  not  of  this  country 

«o  only,  but  of  Kurope  at  large,  is  slowly  pointing  to  the  con- 
clusion, That  Shakspeare  is  the  chief  of  all  I'oets  hitherto; 
the  greatest  intellect  who,  in  our  recorded  world,  has  left 
record  of  himself  in  the  way  of  Literature.  On  the  whole, 
I  know  not  such  a  power  of  vision,'  such  a  faculty  '  of 
thought,  if  we  take  all  the  characters  of  it,  in  any  other 
man.  .Such  a  calmness  of  depth  ;  placid  joyous  strength  ; 
all  things  imaged  in  that  great  soul  of  his  so  true  and  clear, 
as  in  a  tranquil  unfathomable  sea  !  It  has  been  said,  that 
in  the  constructing  of  Shakspeare's  Dramas  there  is,  apart 

ao  from  all  other  'faculties'  as  they  are  called,  an  understand- 
ing manifested,  equal  t,  that  in  Bacon's  Novum  Or);ivium. 
That  is  true;  and  it  is  not  a  truth  that  strikes  every  one. 
It  would  become  xixkag  apparent  if  we  tried,  any  of  us  for 
himself,  how,  out  of  Shakspeare's  dramatic  materials,  r./ 
could  fashion  such  a  result !  The  built  house  seems  all  sd 
fit,  —everyway  -  as  it  should  be,  as  if  it  came  there  by  its 
own  law  and  the  nature  of  things,'— we  forget  the  nuic 
disorderly  quarry  it  was  shaped  from.  The  very  perfec- 
tion of  the  house,  as  if  Nature  herself  had  made  it,  hides 

30  the  builder's  merit.  Perfect,  more  perfect  than  any  other 
man,  we  may  call  Shakspeare  in  this :  he  discerns,  knows 
as  by  instinct,  what  condition  he  works  under,  what  his 

»  »  H'  W  vision,  faculty  3  H«  H'  things  ; 

2  H'  H*  fit,  every  way     H*  fit,  —  every-way 


THE  ttEkO  AS  POET 


materials   are,  what   h 


them 


IS. 


It  is  not  a  transitory 


IS   own    force   and    its    rcl 


119 


iition    to 


suffice;  it  is  deliberate  ill 


glance  of  insight  that  will 


umination  of  the  whole  mattei 


"t  .s  a  calmly  seeing  eye ;  a  great  intellect,  in  short 


II 


„„^     ,  ..         '  0-- 'V.IILWI,  III  snori.      tlow  .1 

man.  of  somew.de  thing  that  he  has  witnessed,  will  cons  tct 
a  narru.ve.  what  kind  of  picture  and  delin  atio     " 

ect  .s  .n  the  man.     Which  circumstance  is  vital  and  shall 
stand  prominent;   which  unessential,  tit  to  be  suppresse 

lo  hnd  out  this,  you  task  the  whole  force  of  insight  tint 

oThfd::h"of"h^ '""? '""''"'"' '''  ^'""«'  --^i 

to  the  depth  of  h.s  understanding,  will  the  fitness  of  his 
answer  be.      Vou  will  try  him  so.      Does  like  joi..  Use  f  t 

tha    us  embrodment  becomes  order?     (a.,  the  man  say. 

wo  df 'l'  •  f "  '^"  ''-^'^''^  *^"^^  -^  ^^  chaos  make 'a 
world  .>  Precisely  as  there  is  A^/,/  in  himsel.;  will  he 
accomplish  this. 

trahUinrn'  "h  T'  "'  '''""'  '^  "  '"  ^^'^•^^  ^  -"^'d  Por-  .o 
men.  that  Shakspeare  .s  ,vv<,/.     All  the  greatness  of 'the 
nan  comes  out  decisively  here.     It  is  unexampled.  I  think 
that  calm  creative  perspicacity  of  Shakspeare.     The  thin.: 
he  looks  at  reveals  not  this  or  that  face  of  it.  but  its  inmost 
htart.  and  generic  secret:    it  dissolves   itself  as   in    light 
^  fore  h.m.  so  that  he  discerns  the  perfect  structure  of  i, 
^  reat.ve.  we  said .-  poetic   creation,  what  is  this  too  but 
7CV      ?u^  ^efficiently  ?     The  r.w,/  that  will  describe 
he  thmg.  follows  of  itself  from  such  clear  intense  sight  of  jo 
the  thing.     And  is  not  Shakspeare's  ».>r,r//n,  his  valour 
IZtTu     '°!f ''"''•     ^^"^hfulness:    his    whole    victorious 
=>trength    and    greatness,  which   can    triumph   over    such 


•  •>•   ' 


I 


120 


i./:cruA'Ks  oa;  ///-lA'O/is 


obstructions,  visible  tht-re  too  ?  (Ireat  as  the  world!  No 
fu'ts/,/,  [Mjor  convex-conc.ive  mirror,  reflecting;  all  objects 
with  its  own  convexities  and  concavities;  a  jxjrfectly  /nr/ 
mirror;  -  -that  is  to  »ay  withal,  if  we  will  understand  it, 
a  man  justly  related  to  all  thin^^s  and  men,  a  ^(X)d  man. 
It  is  truly  a  lordly  spectacle  how  this  ■;reat  soul  take»-in ' 
all  kinds  of  men  and  objects,  a  Kalstalf,  an  OthelK-,  a  Juliet, 
a  Coriolanus;  sets  them  all  forth  to  us  in  their  round  com- 
pleteness; lovin;^,  just    the  equal  brother  of  all.     Airv/w 

10  Orj^tinHm,  and  all  the  intellect  you  will  tind  in  Hacon,  is  of 
a  quite  secondary  order ;  earthy,  material,  poor  in  com- 
parison with  this.  Amonj;  modern  men,  one  finds,  in 
strictness, almos..  nothinj;  of  the  same  rank,  (loethe  alone, 
since  the  days  of  Shaksjieare,  reminds  me  of  it.  Of  him 
too  you  say  that  he  sdjo  the  object ;  you  may  say  what 
he  himself  says  of  Shakspeare :  'His  characters  are  like- 
watches  with  dial-plates  of  transparent  crystal;  they  show 
you  the  hour  like  others,  and  the  inward  mechanism  als(» 
is  a'l  visible.' 

20  The  seeing  eye  !  It  is  this  that  discloses  the  inner 
harmony  of  things  ;  what  Nature  meant,  what  musical  idea 
Nature  has  wrappcd-up"  in  these  often  rough  embodiments. 
Something  she  did  mean.  To  the  seeing  eye  that  some 
thing  were  discernible.  .\re  they  base,  miserable  things.' 
\  ou  can  laugh  over  lliein,  you  can  weep  over  them  ;  you 
can  in  some  way  or  otlier  genially  relate  yourself  to  them; 
■ — ^you  can,  i.  t  lowest,  hold  your  peace  about  them,  turn 
away  your  own  and  others'  face  from  thcin,  till  the  hour 
comt  for  practically  exterminating  and  extinguishing  them  '. 

30  At  bottom,  it  is  the  Poet's  first  gift,  as  it  is  all  men's,  that 
he  have  intellect  enough.  He  will  be  a  Poet  if  he  have : 
a  Poet  in  word;  cr  failing  that,  perhaps  sti"  better,  ^  Fret 
in  act.     Whether  he  write  at  all ;   and  it  so,  whether  in 

»  II'  IP  IP  takes  in  ^  II'  11=  IP  wrapped  up 


h 


////   ///■/•() 


I'rc.scor  in  vtrso,  will  t|ir|H.n<l 
what  cKtrefT»,;|y  trivial 


.^.s  P,  .:r  ,2, 

>n  accidt-nts:  who  knows  on 


hul    .  .in  •      *'  '"'''^'' "''■""'^•"'^'     -  I'^^'-h'PH  on  hU  having 

..ul  a  H  nKm^-mastcr.  on  his  l,c-in«  ,,.„;,ht  to  .in«  in  his 

.oyhoo.II     ,u.t  the  faculty  which   .nahlcs  hin,  to'lisccrn 

e  .nncr  heart  of  thin,.,  and   the  harmony   that   dwells 

.ere    for  whatsoc-ver  exists  has  a  har.nony  in  the  heart  of 

•  ';;;t  -»"<'  -'t  hoUl  together  and  exi.t,.  is  not  the  result 

of  hah.ts  or  accidents,  hut  the  ,nft  of   Nature  herself ;  the 

prunary  outht  for  a  Heroic   M..n  in  what  .ort  .soever.     To 

the  I  oet   as  to  every  other,  we  say  (irst  of  all.  S.-.-.      If  you 

c.nnot  do  that,  it  is  of  no  use  .o  keep  strin.in,  rhv me" 

oursclt  a   I'oet;  there  .s  no   hope   f<.r  you.      If  you  can. 
.ere  .s.  .n  prose  or  verse,   in  action   or  speculation,   al 
..nner  of  hope.     The  crabbed  old  .Schoohnaster  usJd  to 
ask    w.,en  they  breu^du  hi.n  a  new  pupil.  "  lu.t  are  ye  sure 
he  s  „,,  „  „   .,,,..     ,vhy,  really  one  n,i,ht  ask  the  same 
h.n«.    m   regard  to  every  nun   proposed    for   whatsoever 
function;  and  consider  it  as  the  one  inquiry  needful:  .Are 
}e  sure  he  s  not  a  dunce'     Thero  is.   in  this  world,  no  . 
'Jther  entirely  fatal  person. 

J'or,  in  fact,  I  say  the  dejjree  of  vision  that  dwells  in  a 
nun  .s  a  correct  measure  of  the  man.      If  called  to  define 
Shakspeares  faculty.  I   should  say  superiority  of  Intellect 
and  think  I  l,ad  included  all  under  that.     What  indeed  arc' 
faculties  >    We  talkof  facultx-s  as  if  they  were  distinct,  thing 
separable  ;  as  if  a  man  had  intellect,  imagination,  fancy,  .<ct 
as  he  has  hands,  feet  and  arms.     That  is  a  capi-al  error. 
Then  again,  we  hear  of  a  man's  •  intellectual  nature,'  and  of 
h.s     moral  nature.'  as  if  these  a,.un  were    divisible,   and  30 
exited  apart     Necessities  of  language  do  perhaps '  prescribe 
such  forms  of  utterance  ' ;  we  must  speak,  I  am  aware,  in  that 
way.  tf  we  are  to  speak  at  ail.     But  words  ought  not  to  hard 
"  H'  H^  indeed  require  us  so  to  speak  ; 


10 


len 


M  il 


m 


I   ' 


iT 

H 

1 

1 

1 

1 

R 

1 

1 

i 

1 

i; 

; 

I 

^ 

122 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


into  things  for  us.  It  seems  to  me,  our  apprehension  of 
this  matter  is,  for  most  part,  radically  falsified  thereby.  We 
ought  to  know  withal,  ai  i  to  keep  forever  in  mind,  that 
these  divisions  are  at  bottom  but  mimes ;  that  man's  spiritual 
nature,  the  vital  Force  which  dwells  in  him,  is  essentially 
one  and  indivisible ;  that  what  we  call  imagination,  fancy, 
understanding,  and  so  forth,  are  but  different  figures  of  the 
same  Power  of  Insight,  all  indissolubly  connected  with  each 
other,  physiognomically   related ;  that   if  we  knew  one  of 

10  them,  we  might  know  all  of  thern.  Morality  itself,  what  we 
call  the  moral  quality  of  a  man,  what  is  tiii^  but  another  sii/r 
of  the  one  vital  Force  whereby  he  is  and  works  ?  Ml  that 
a  man  does  is  physiognomical  of  him.  Y'ou  may  see  how  a 
man  would  fight,  by  the  way  in  which  he  sings  ;  his  couragf, 
or  want  of  courage,  is  visible  in  the  word  he  utters,  in  the 
opinion  he  has  formed,  no  less  than  in  the  stroke  he  strikes. 
He  is  <»h' ;  and  preaches  the  same  Self  abroad  in  all  these 
ways. 

Without  hands  a  man  might  have  feet,  and  could  still 

2o  walk:  but,  consider  it,' — without  morality,  intellect  were 
impossible  for  him;  a'^  thoroughly  immoral  vian'-  could  not 
know  anything  at  all  !  To  know  a  thing,  what  we  can  call 
knowmg,  a  man  must  first  /o-r  the  thing,  symjiathise''  with 
it:  that  is,  be  virtuously  related  to  it.  If  he  have  not  the 
justice  to  put  down  his  own  selfishness  at  every  turn,  the 
courage  to  stand  by  the  dangerous-true  at  every  turn,  how 
shall  he  know  ?  His  virtues,  all  of  them,  will  lie  recorded  in 
his  knowledge.  Nature,  with  her  truth,  remains  to  the  bad, 
to  the  .selfish  and  the  pusillanimous  forever  a  sealed  book : 

30  what  such  can  know  of  N  *:ure  is  mean,  superficial,  small  ; 
for  the  uses  of  the  day  merely.  —  But  does  not  the  very  Fox 
know  something  of  Nature  ?     Exactly  so  :   it  knows  where 


1  11'  HMt,  IPit, — 


^  IP  IP  W  he 


»  H'  IP  H'  sympathize 


THE  HEKO  AS  POET 


123 


the  geese  lodge  !     The  human  Reynard,  very  frequent  every- 
where in  the  world,  what  more  does  he  know  but  this  and 
the  like  of  this  ?     Nay,  it  should  be  considered  too,  that  if 
the  Fox  had  not  a  certain  vulpine  vwralih;  he  could  not 
even  know  where  the  geese  were,  or  get  at  the  geese !     If  he 
spent  his  time  in  splenetic  atrabiliar  reflections  '  on  his  own 
misery,  his  ill  usage  by  Nature,  Fortune  and  other  Foxes, 
and  so  forth  ;  and  had  not   courage,  promptitude,  practi- 
cality, and  other  suitable  vulpine  gifts  and  graces,  he  would 
catch   no  geese.     We   may  say  of  the    Fox   too,  that   his  .o 
morality  and  insight  are  of  the  same  dimensions  ;  different 
faces  of  the  same  internal  unity  of  vulpine  life !  —  These 
things  are  worth  stating  ;  for  the  contrary  of  them  acts  with 
manifold  very  baleful  perversion,  in  this  time :  what  limita- 
tions, modifications  they  require,  your  own  candour  will 
supply. 

If  I   say,  therefore,  that  Shakspeare  is  the  greatest  of 
Intellects,  I  have  said  all  concerning^  him.      Hut  there  is 
more  in  Shakspeare's  intellect  than  we  have  yet  seen.     It     ' 
is  what  I  call  an  unconscious  intellect ;  there  is  more  virtue  20 
in   it   than   he  himself    is  aware   of.     Novalis  beautifully 
remarks  of  him,  that  those  Dramas  of  his  are  Products  of 
Nature  too,  deep  as  Nature  herself.      I  find  a  great  truth  in 
this  saying.     Shakspeare's  Art  is  not  Artifice  ;  the  noblest 
worth   of  it  is  not  there  by  plan  or  precontrivance.      It 
grows-up"  from   the  deeps  of  Nature,  through  this  noble 
sincere  soul,  v  .10  is  a  voice  of  Nature.     The  latest  genera- 
tions of  men  will  find  new  meanings  in  Shakspeare,  new 
elucidations  of  their  own  human  being ;  '  new  harmonies 
witii  the  infinite  structure  of  the  Universe ;   concurrences  30 
with   later   ideas,  affinities  with    the   higher   powers   and 
senses  of   man.'     This  well    deserves    meditating.     It    is 

*  H"  W  reflexions  a  H'  H^  aljout 

»  H'  H»  \V  grows  up 


I   *M 


^.:> 


1  '-"1 


! 


124 


LECTURES  OX  HEROES 


Nature's  hijjhest  reward  to  a  true  simple  great  soul,  that  he 
get  thus  to  be  a  />ivt  of  herself .  Such  a  man's  works,  whatso- 
ever he  witli  tmost  conscious  exertion  and  forethought 
shall  accomj  ,h,  grow  up  withal  ////consciously,  from  the 
unknown  deeps  in  him;  as  the  oak-tree  grows  from  the 
Earth's  bosom,  as  the  mountains  and  waters  shape  them- 
selves; with  a  symmetry  grounded  on  Nature's  own  laws, 
conformable  to  all  Truth  whatsoever.  How  much  in  Shaks- 
peare  lies  hid  ;  his  sorrows,  his  silent  struggles  known  to 

10  himself;  much  that  was  not  known  at  all,  not  speakable  at 
all :  like  roots,  like  sap  and  forces  working  underground  '. 
Speech  is  great ;  but  Silence  is  greater. 

Withal  the  joyful  tranquillity  of  this  man  is  notable,  i 
will  not  blame  Dante  for  his  misery  :  it  is  as  battle  without 
victory;  but  true  battle, --the  tirst,  indispensable  thini;. 
Vet  I  call  Shakspeare  greater  than  Dante,  in  that  he  fought 
truly,  and  did  conquer.  Doubt  it  not,  he  had  his  own 
sorrows :  those  Sonn./s  of  his  wiJl  even  testify  expresslv  in 
what  deep  waters  he  had  waded,  and  swum  struggling  for 

-o  his  life; — -as  what  man  like  him  ever  failed'  to  have'  to 
do  ?  It  seems  to  me  a  heedless  notion,  our  common  one 
that  he  sat  like  a  bird  on  the  bou  ,1 ;  and  sang  forth,  free  and 
offhand,^  never  knowing  the  troubles  of  other  men.  Not 
so  ;  with  no  man  is  it  so.  How  could  a  man  travel  forward 
from  rustic  deer-poaching  to  such  tragedy-writing,  and  not 
fall-in ''  with  sorrows  by  the  way  ?  Or,  still  better,  hov, 
could  a  man  delineate  a  Hamlet,  a  ("oriolanus,  a  Macbeth. 
so  many  suffering  heroic  heart.s,  if  his  own  heroic  heart  h;i(l 
never  suffered  ?       .\nd  now,  in  contrast  with  all  this,  observe 

30  his  mirthfulness,  his  genuine  overflowing  love  of  laughter! 
You  would  say,  in  no  point  does  he  exaggerate  but  only  in 
laughter.      Fiery  objurgations,  words  that  pierce  and  burn. 


1  1  H'UMiadnot 


•^  H3  off  hand 


3H'  IF  HJ  fall  in 


THE   HERO   AS  POET 


J25 


are  to  be  found  in  Shakspeare  ;  yet  he  is  always  in  measure 
here;  never  what  Johnson  would  remark  as  a  specially 
'good  hater.'  But  his  laughter  seems  to  pour  from  him  in 
floods ;  he  heaps  all  manner  of  ridiculous  nicknames  on  the 
butt '  he  is  bantering,  tumbles'  and  tosses  him  in  all  sorts  of 
horse-play;  you  would  say,  with-  his  whole  hfjart  -  laughs. 
And  then,  if  not  always  the  finest,  it  is  always  a  genial 
laughter.  Not  at  mere  weakness,  at  misery  or  poverty; 
never.  Xo  man  who  can  laugh,  what  we  call  laughing,  will 
laugh  at  these  things.  It  is  some  poor  character  only  .0 
di'siriiDi^o  laugh,  and  have  the  credit  of  wit,  that  does  so, 
Laughter  means  sympathy;  good  laughter  is  not  'the 
crackling  of  thorns  under  the  pot.'  Kven  at  stupidity  and 
pretension  this  Shakspeare  does  not  laugh  otherwise  than 
genially.  Dogberry  and  \erges  tickle  our  very  hearts; 
and  we  dismiss  them  covered  with  explosions  of  laughter: 
but  we  like  the  poor  fellows  only  the  better  for  our  laugh- 
ing;  and  hope  they  will  get  on  well  there,  and  continue 
Presidents  of  the  City-watch.  Such  laughter,  like  sun- 
shine on  the  deep  sea,   is  very  beautiful  to  me.  20 


M.  ,>< 


■,  't  • 


We  have  no  room  to  speak  of  Shakspeare's  individual 
works;  though  perhaps  there  is  much  still  waiting  to  be 
said 'on  that  head.  Had  we,  for  instance,  all  his  plays'' 
reviewed  as  Hamht,  in  Willirhn  Mrist.r,  is  !  A  thing  which 
might,  one  day,  be  done.  August  Wilhelni  Sclilegel  has  a 
remark  on  his  Historical  Plays,  Hrnry  /v///- and  tlie  others, 
which  is  worth  remembering.  He  calls  them  a  kind  of 
National  Epic.  Marlborough,  you  recollect,  said,  he  knew 
no  English  History  but  what  he  had  learned  from  Shaks- 
peare. There  are  really,  if  we  look  to  it,  few  as  memorable  3c 
Histories.      The  great  salient  points  are  admirably  seized  ; 

'  '  11'  W  butt.  tuml.l.,<  -  -  IP  IP  IP  ruar^  ..lul 

»  II'  11=  IP  Flays 


!>    . 


126 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


t!    ( 


all  rounds  itself  ofiF,  into  a  kind  of  rhythmic  coherence ;  it 
is,  as  Schlegel  says,  e/>ic;  —  as  indeed  all  delineation  by  a 
great  thinker  will  be.  There  are  right  beautiful  things  in 
those  Pieces,  which  indeed  together  form  one  beautiful 
thing.  That  battle  of  Agincourt  strikes  me  as  one  of  the 
most  perfect  things,  in  its  sort,  we  anywhere  have  of  Shaks- 
peare's.  The  description  of  the  two  hosts :  the  worn-out, 
jaded  English ;  the  dread  hour,  big  with  destiny,  when  the 
battle  shall  begin  ;  and  then  that  deathless  valour :   "  Ye 

lo  good  yeomen,  whose  limbs  were  made  in  England  !  "  There 
is  a  noble  Patriotism  in  it,  —  far  other  than  the  '  indiffer- 
-e  '  you  sometimes  hear  ascribed  to  Shakspeare.  A  true 
English  heart  breathes,  calm  and  strong,  through  the  whole 
business ;  not  boisterous,  protrusive  ;  all  the  better  for  that. 
There  is  a  sound  in  it  like  the  ring  of  steel.  This  man  too 
had  a  right  stroke  in  him,  had  it  come  to  that ! 

But  I  will  say,  of  Shakspeare's  works  generally,  that  we 
have  no  full  impress  of  him  there;  even  as  full  as  we  have 
of  many  men.     His  works  are  so  many  windows,  through 

20  which  we  see  a  glimpse  of  the  world  that  was  in  him.  All 
his  works  seem,  comparatively  speaking,  cursory,  imperfect, 
written  under  cramping  circumstances ;  giving  only  here 
and  there  a  note  of  the  full  utterance  of  the  man.  Passages 
there  are  that  come  upon  you  like  splendour  out  of  Heaven  ; 
bursts  of  radiance,  illuminating  the  very  heart  of  the  thing  : 
you  say,  "  That  is  true,  spoken  once  and  forever ;  whereso- 
ever and  whensoever  there  is  an  open  human  soul,  that  will 
be  recognised  as  true ! "  Such  bursts,  however,  make  us 
feel  that  the  surrounding  matter  is  not  radiant ;  that  it  is, 

30  in  part,  temporary,  conventional.  Alas,  Shakspeare  had  tu 
write  for  the  Globe  Playhouse :  his  great  soul  had  to  crush 
itself,  as  it  could,  into  that  and  no  other  mould.  It  was 
with  him,  then,  as  it  is  with  us  all.  No  man  works  save 
under  conditions.     The  sculptor  cannot  set  his  own  free 


THE   HERO  AS  POET 


Ml 


Thought  before  us ;  but  his  Thought  as  he  could  translate 
it  into  the  stone  that  was  given,  with  the  tools  that  were 
given.  Disjecta  membra  are  all  that  we  find  of  any  Poet,  or 
of  any  man. 


Whoever    looks    intelligently    at    this    Shakspeare    may 
recognise  that  he  too  was  a  rroplut,   in  his  way  ;   of  an 
insight  analogous  to  the  Prophetic,  though  he  took  it  up  in 
another  strain.      Nature  seemed  to  this  man  also  divine; 
««speakable,  deep  as    Topht-t,  high  as    Heaven :  '  We  are 
such  stuff  as  Dreams  are  made  of!'      That  scroll  in  West-  lo 
minster  Abbey,  which  few  read  with  understanding,  is  of 
the  depth  of  any  seer.      Hut  the  man  sang ;  did  not  preach, 
except     usically.     We  called  Dante  the  melodious  Priest  of 
Middle-Age  Catholicism.      May  we  not  call  Shakspeare  the 
still  more  melodious  Priest  of  a  tnte  Catholicism,  the  '  Uni- 
versal Church  '  of  the  Future  and  of  all  times .'     No  narrow 
superstition,  harsh  asceticism,  fanatical  fierceness  or  perver- 
sion :  a  Revelation,  so  far  as  it  goes,  that  such  a  thousand- 
fold hidden  beauty  and  divineness  dwells  in  all  Nature; 
which    let    all    men   worship  as  they  can!     We    may  say  20 
without  offence,  that  there  rises  x  kind  of  universal   Ps.ilni 
out  of  this  Shakspeare  too  ;  not  until   to  make  itself  heard 
among  the  still  more  sacred   Psalms.     Not  in  disharmony 
with  these,  if  we  understood  them,  but  in  harmony  '  !       I 
cannot  call  this  Shakspeare  a  -Sceptic,-  as  some  do;  his 
indifference  to  the  creeds  and  theological  quarrels  of  his 
time  misleading  them.      No  :   neither  unpatriotic,  ihoagh  he 
says  little  about  his  Patriotism  ;  nor  -  sceptic,  though  he'says 
little  about  his  Faith.     Such  '  indifference  '  was  the  fruit  of 
his  greatness  withal :  his  whole  heart  was  in  his  own  grand  .30 
sphere  of  worship  (we  may  call  it  such ) ;  these  other  contro- 
versies, vitally  important  to  other  men,  were  noi  vital  to  hitn. 
1  II'  H-  H^  unison  -^  \\\  no 


!    '. 


.-••J 

—'it 


• 

i 


il.1 


tiM 


128 


LECTURES   ON  IIEKOES 


\ 


\ 


:i 


But  call  it  worship,  call  it  what  you  will,  is  it  not  a  right 
glorious  thing,  and  set  of  things,  this  that  Shakspeare  has 
brought  us  ?  For  myself,  I  feel  that  there  is  actually  a  kind 
of  sacredness  in  the  fact  of  such  a  man  being  sent  into  this 
P^arth.  Is  he  not  an  eye  to  us  all ;  a  blessed  heaven-sent 
Bringer  of  Li<,'ht  ?—  And,  at  bottom,  was  it  not  perhaps  far 
better  that  this  Shakspeare,  everyway  '  an  unconscious  man, 
was  conscious  of  no  Heavenly  message  ?  He  did  not  feel,  li  kc 
Mahomet,  because  he  saw  into  those  internal  Splendours, 

10  that  he  specially  was  the  '  Prophet  of  dod:'  and-  was  he 
not  greater  than  Mahomet  in  that  ?  C.reater ;  and  also,  if 
we  compute  strictly,  as  we  did  in  Dante's  case,  more  success- 
ful. It  was  intrinsically  an  error  that  notion  of  Mahomet's, 
of  his  supreme  Prophethood  ;  and  has  come  down  to  us 
inextricably  involved  in  error  to  this  day  ;  dragging  along 
with  it  such  a  coil  of  fables,  impurities,  intolerances,  as 
makes  it  a  questionable  step  for  me  here  and  now  to  say,  as 
I  have  done,  that  Mahomet  was  a  true  Speaker  at  all,  and 
not  rather  an  ambitious  charlatan,  perversity  and  simula 

20  crum  ;  no  Speaker,  but  a  Babbler  I  F.ven  in  Arabia,  as  1 
compute,  Mahomet  will  have  exhausted  himself  and  become 
obsolete,  while  this  Shakspeare,  this  Dante  may  still  be 
young;  while  this  Shakspeare  may  still  pretend  to  be  a 
Priest  of  Mankind,  of  Arabia  as  of  other  places,  for  unlimited 
periods  to  come  !  ' 

Compared  with  any  speaker  or  singer  one  knows,  even 
with  .Eschylus  or  Homer,  why  should  he  not,  for  veracity 
and  universality,  last  like  them  ?  He  is  sincere  as  they  ; 
reaches  deep  down  like  them,  to  the  universal  and  peren 

30  nial.  But  as  for  Mahomet,  f  think  it  had  been  better  for 
him  not  to  be  so  conscious  !  Alas,  poor  Mahomet  ;  all  that 
he  was  conscious  of  was  a  mere  error ;  a  futility  and  trivial 

»  H'  IP  1[^  every  way  ■:  H'  IP  I  ask 

•^  no  pa  nigra/' /t  in  H'  I|-  W 


THE   IIEKO   AS  POET 


12V 


ity,  —as  indeed  such  ever  is.  I'he  truly  great  in  him  too 
was  the  unconscious  :  that  he  was  a  wild  Arab  lion  of  the 
desert,  and  did  speak-out  '  with  that  great  thunder-voice  of 
his,  not  by  words  which  he  thought  to  be  great,  but  by 
actions,  by  feelings,  by  a  history  whicii  wnr  great !  His 
Koran  has  become  a  stujiid  piece  of  prolix  absurdity  ;  we 
do  not  believe,  like  him,  that  r'.od  wrote  that!  The  C.reat 
Man  here  too,  as  always,  is  a  lorceof  Nature:  whatsoever 
is  truly  great  in  him  springs-up-  from  the  ///articulate  deeps. 

Well  :  this  is  our  poor  Warwickshire  Peasant,  who  rose  'o 
to  be  Manager  of  a  Playhouse,  so  that  he  could  live  with- 
out begging  ;  whom  the  Karl  of  .Southampton  cast  some 
kind  glances  on  :  whom  Sir  Thomas  Lucy,  many  thanks  to 
him,  was  for  sending  to  the  I'readmill  !  We  did  not  account 
him  a  god,  like  Odin,  while  lie  dwelt  with  us;  on  which 
point  there  were  nuich  to  be  said.  Put  i  will  say  rather, 
or  repeat :  In  spite  of  the  sad  state  Hero-worship  now  lies 
in,  consider  what  this  Shakspeare  has  actuallv  become 
among  us.  Which  Knglishman  we  ever  made,  in  this  land 
of  ours,  which  million  of  Knglishmen,  would  wc  not  give-  20 
up'  rather  than  the  Stratford  Peasant.'  There  is  no  regi- 
ment of  highest  Dignitaries  that  we  would  sell  iiini  for. 
He  is  the  grandest  thing  we  have  yet  done.  Kor  our 
honour  among  foreign  nations,  as  an  ornament  to  our 
Knglish  Household,  what  item  is  tliere  that  we  would  not 
surrender  rather  than  him.'  V  -.sider  now.  if  they  asked 
us,  Will  you  give-up^  your  Indian  Kmiiire  or  your  Shak.s- 
peare,  you  Knglish  ;  never  have  had  any  Indian  Kmpire, 
or  never  have  had  any  Shaksjieare  .'  Really  it  were  a  grave 
question.  ( )fficial  persons  would  answer  doubtless  in  offi-  30 
cial  language ;  but  we,  for  our  part  too.  should  not  we  be 


»  H'  IP  H3  speak  out 
^  H'  H-  H^  springs  uj) 


■'  H'  il-  ir'  give  up 
Ml'  11^  IP  give  up 


■*i 


,1 


■  ! 


^ 


130 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


ii 


a 

:1 


forced  to  answer:  Indian  Empire,'  or  no'  Indian  Kmpire  ; 
we  cannot  do  without  Shakspeare  !  Indian  Kmpire  will  go,' 
at  any  rate,  some  day ;  but  this  Shakspeare  does  not  go,' 
he  lasts  forever  with  us;  we  cannot  give-up*  our  Shaks- 
peare! 

Nay,    apart   from   spiritualities;    and    considering   him 
merely  as  a  real,  marketable,  tangibly-useful  '  possession. 
England,  before  long,  this  Island  of  ours,  will  hold  but  a 
small  fraction  of  the  English  :  in  America,  in  New  Holland, 
•o  east  and  west  to  the  very  Antipodes,  there  will  be  a  Saxon- 
dom  covering  great  spaces  of  the  Cllobe.     And  now,  what 
is  it  that  can  keep  all   these  together  into  virtually  one 
Nation,  so  that  they  do  not  fall-out*  and  fight,  but  live 
at  peace,  in  brotherlike  intercourse,  helping  one  another  ? 
This  is  justly  regarded  as  the  greatest  practical  problem, 
the  thing  all  manner  of  sovereignties  and  governments  are 
here  to  accomplish :  what  is  it  that  will  accomplish  this  ? 
Acts  of  Parliament,  administrative  prime-ministers  cannot. 
America  is  parted  from  us,  so  far  as  Parliament  could  part  it. 
20  Call  it  not  fantastic,  for  there  is  much  reality  in  it :   Here, 
I  say,  is  an  English  King,  whom  no  time  or  chance.  Parlia- 
ment or  combination  of  Parliaments,  can  dethrone  !     This 
King  Shakspeare,   does  not   he  shine,   in   crowned  sover- 
eignty, over  us  all,  as  the  noblest,  gentlest,  yet  strongest  of 
rallying-signs  ;  ///destructible  ;  really  more  valuable  in  that 
point  of  view  than  any  other  means  or  appliance  whatso- 
ever .?     We  can  fancy  him  as  radiant  aloft  6ver  all  the 
Nations  of  Englishmen,  a  thousand   years  hence.     From 
Paramatta,  from   New  York,  wheresoever,  under  what  sort 
30  of  Parish-Constable  soever,  English  men  and  women  are, 
they  will  say  to  one   another:    "Yes,  this   Shakspeare  is 
ours ;  we  produced  him,  we  speak  and  think  by  him ;  we 


1 1 


H'  Empire,  no 
2  H'  H»  IP  give  up 


3  H'  H=  H'  tangibly  useful 
*  II'  IP  IP  fall  out 


nit:   liEKO  AS  POET 


u\ 


are  of  one  blood  and  kind  with  him."     The  most  common- 
—"•'e  politician,  too,  if  he  pleases,  may  think  of  that. 

iTes,  tru'y.  it  is  a  great  thing  for  a  Nation  that  it  get  an 
articulate  voice;   that  it  produce  a  man  who  will  speak- 
forth  '  melodiously  what  the  heart  of  it  means!     Italy,  for 
example,  poor  Italy  lies  dismembered,  scattered  asunder, 
not  appearing  in  any  protocol  or  treaty  as  a  unity  at  all  ; 
yet    the    noble    Italy   is   actually  one:    Italy   produced   its 
Dante;  Italy  can  speak!      The  Czar  of  all  the  Russias,  he 
is  strong,  with  so  many  bayonets,  Cossacks  and  cannons;  ir 
and  does  a  great  feat  in  keeping  such  a  tract  of  Earth  polit- 
ically together  ;  but  he  cannot  yet  speak.     Something  great 
in  him,  but  it  is  a  dumb  greatness.     He  has  had  no  voice 
of  genius,  to  be  heard  of   all  men  and  times.     He  must 
learn  to  speak.     He  is  a  great  dumb  monster  hitherto.    His 
cannons  and  Cossacks  will  all  have  rusted  into  nonentity 
while  that  Dante's  voice  is  still  audible.      The  Nation  that 
has  a  Dante  is  bound  together  as  no  dumb  Russia  can  be. 
—  We  must  here  end  what  we  had  to  say  of  the  Hero- Poet 

^W  II»  IP  speak  forth 


Mi 


I 


ill 


I 


LECTURK    IV 

THK     IIKRo    AS     I'HIKSI.       r.tilHKK;     RKKORMATION  : 
KNOX;     I'lIRriANISM 

[Friday,  i5tli  May  1S40.]  > 

Our  present  discourse  is  to  be  of  the  (Ire.it  M<in  as 
I'ric^l  We  have  repeatedly  endeavoured  to  explain  that 
all  sorts  of  Heroes  are  intrinsically  of  the  same  material ; 
that  given  a  great  soul,  o\K'U  to  the  Divine  Significance  of 
Life,  then  there  is  given  a  man  tit  to  speak  of  this,  to  sing 
of  this,  to  tight  and  work  for  this,  in  a  great,  victorious, 
enduring  manner;  there  is  given  a  Hero,  -the  outward 
shape  of  whom  will  depend  on  the  time  and  the  environ- 
ment he  finds  himself  in.      I'ho  Priest  too,  as  I  understaml 

10  it,  is  a  kind  of  I'rophet ;  in  him  too  there  is  required  to  he 
a  light  of  inspiration,  as  we  must  name  it.  He  presides 
over  the  worship  of  the  people  ;  is  the  I'niter  of  them  with 
the  Unseen  Holy.  He  is  the  spiritual  Captain  of  the 
people;  as  the  I'rophet  is  their  spiritual  King  with  many 
captains:  he  guides  them  heavenward,  by  wise  guidance- 
through  tiiis  Karth  and  its  work.  The  ideal  of  liim  is,  that 
he  too  be  what  we  can  call  a  voice  from  the  unseen  Heaven  ; 
interpreting,  even  as  the  I'rophet  did,  and  in  a  more  familiar 
manner  unfolding  the  same  to  men.      The  unseen   Heaven, 

20  — the  'open  secret  of  the  I'niverse,'  -  which  so  few  have 
an  eye  for  !  He  is  the  I'rophet  shorn  of  his  more  awful 
splendour;    burning   with    mild   equable   radiance,    as  the 

>  H'  IF  \V  ./aU  ahcwe  titU. 
'32 


»'l 


77//.    HERO  AS  PKIEST 


133 


enhghtener  of  daily  life.  This,  I  s.iy,  is  the  ideal  of  a 
Priest.  So  in  old  nines;  s..  in  these,  and  in  ill  times. 
One  knows  very  well  that,  in  n-l  icin;;  ideals  to  practice, 
great  latitude  of  tolerance  is  needful ;  very  K'rt-'at!  Hut  a 
Priest  who  Is  not  this  at  all,  who  «loes  not  any  lon^'er  aim 
or  try  to  be  this,  is  a  character  -of  whom  we  had  rather 
not  s|H!ak  in  this  place. 

Luther  and  Knox  were  by  express  vocation    Priests,  and 
did  faithfully  perform  that  function  in  its  common  sense. 
Yet  it  will  suit  us  better  here  to  consider  them  chiefly  in  .^ 
their  historical  character,  rather  as  Reformers  t'..  n  Priests. 
There  have  been  other   Priests  perliaps  equally  notable,  in 
cilmer  times,  for  doinj,'  faithfully  the  oOice  of  a  Leader  of 
Worship;  bringing  down,  by  faithful  heroism  in  that  kintl. 
.1  light   from   Heaven  into  the  daily  life  of  their  people; 
leading  them  forward,  as  under  Ood's  guidance,  in  the  way 
wherein  they  were  to  go.     Hut  when  this  same  n'nv  was  a 
rough  one.  of  battle,  confusion  and  danger,  the  spiritual 
Captain,  who  led  through  that.  I)eco,„es,  especially  to  us 
who  live  under  the  fruit  of  his  leading,  more  notable  than  20 
any  other.     He  is  the  warfarin-  and  battling  Priest ;  who 
led  his  people,  not  to  cpiiet  faithful   labour  as  in  smooth 
times,  but  to  faithful  valorous  conflict,  in  times  all  violent, 
dismembered  :  a  more  i)erilous  service,  and  a  more  memo- 
rable one,  be  it    higher  or  not.      These  two  men  we  will 
account  our  best   Priests,  inasmuch  as  thev  were  our  best 
Reformers.     Nay  I  may  ask.  Is  not  every' true   Reformer, 
by  the  nature  of  him,  a   l'ri,st  first  of  all?     He  appeals 
to  Heaven's  invisible  justice  against  Karth's  visible  force; 
knows  that    it,  the  invisible,  is  strong  and  alone  strong.  30 
He  is  a  believer  in  the  divine  truth  of  things  ;  a  .urr,  seeing 
through  the  shows  '  of  things;  a  worshipper,  in  oneway  or 
the  other,  of  the  divine  truth  of  things ;  a  Priest,  that  is. 

1  H»  IP  shews 


ill 


tfi 


0 


134 


LECrUK/iS  OA'  ItEROKS 


i 

^^H  ! 

ail 

^■t 

H' 

If  he  be  not  first  a  Priest,  he  wi"      ^er  be  good  for  much 
as  a  Reformer. 

Thus  then,  as  we  have  seen  (>reat  Men,  in  various  situa- 
tions, building-up  '  Religions,  heroic  Forms  of  human  Exist- 
ence .n  this  world.  Theories  of  Life  worthy  to  be  sung  by 
a  Dante,  Practices  of  Life  by  a  Sh.ikspcare,  —  we  are  now  to 
see  the  reverse  process ;  which  also  is  necessary,  which 
also  may  be  c;i''ried-on  *  in  the  Heroic  manner.  Curious 
how  this  should  be  necessary :  yet  necessary  it  is.     The 

10  mild  shining  of  the  Poet's  light  has  to  give  place  to  the 
fierce  lightning  of  the  Reformer :  unfortunately  the  Reformer 
too  is  a  personage  that  cannot  fail  in  History  !  The  Poet 
indeed,  with  his  mildness,  what  is  he  but  the  product  and 
ultimate  adjustment  of  Reform,  or  Prophecy,  with  its  fierce- 
ness? No  wild  Saint  Dominies  and  Thebaid '  Kremites, 
there  had  been  no  melodious  Danta;  rough  Practical 
Endeavour,  Scandinavian  and  other,  from  Odin  to  Walter 
Raleigh,  from  Ulfila  to  Cranmer,  enabled  Shakspeare  to 
speak.     Nay  the  finished  Poet,  I  remark  sometimes,  is  a 

io  symptom  that  his  epoch  itself  has  reached  perfection  and 
is  finished ;  that  before  long  there  will  be  a  new  epoch, 
new  Reformers  needed. 

Doubtless  it  were  finer,  could  we  go  along  always  in  the 
way  of  music ;  be  tamed  and  taught  by  our  Poets,  as  the 
rude  creatures  were  by  their  Orpheus  of  old.  Or  failing 
this  rhythmic  viiisical  way,  how  good  were  it  could  we  get 
so  much  as  into  the  equable  way  ;  I  mean,  if  peaceable  Priests, 
reforming  from  day  to  day,  would  always  suffice  us  !  But 
it  is  not  so ;  even  this  latter  has  not  yet  been  realised. 

30  Alas,  the  battling  Reformer  too  is,  from  time  to  time, 
a  needful  and  inevitable  phenomenon.  Obstructions  are 
never  wanting :  the  very  things  that  were  once  indispen- 

»  1I»  II»  W  building  up  -  M'  WW  carried  on 

»  H«  H»  Thebaid 


'^  I 


THR  HERO  AS  PKIEST 


US 


sable  furtherances  become  obstructiotiH ;  and  need  to  Iw 
shaken-oJt,'  and  left  behinu  us  -a  businesH  often  of  enor- 
tnouH  difficulty.  It  is  notable  enough,  surely,  how  a  Thee 
rem  or  spiritual  Representation,  so  we  may  call  it.  which 
once  took-in  the  whole  Universe,  and  was  completely  satis- 
factory in  all  pan  if  it  to  the  highly-tliscursive'  acute 
intellect  of  Dante,  one  of  the  greatest  in  the  world,  had 
in  the  course  bf  another  century  become  dubitable  to  com- 
mon  intellects  ;  become  deniable  ;  and  is  now,  to  every  one 
of  us.  Hatly  incredible,  obsolete  as  Odin's  Theorem!  ro  lo 
Dante,  human  Existence,  and  (lod's  ways  with  men,  were 
all  well  represented  by  those  MahM^cs,  J'lux.Uorios ;  to 
Luther  not  well.  How  was  this .»  Why  could  not  Dante's 
Catholicism  continue;  but  Luther's  Protestantism  must 
needs  follow  >     Alas,  nothing  will  umtinuf. 

I  do  lot  make  much  of  '  Progress  of  the  Species,'  as 
handled  in  these  times  of  ours ;  nor  do  I  think  you  would 
care  to  hear  much  about  it.      The  talk  on  that  subject  is 
too   often  of   the  most   extravagant,  confused   sort.     Yet 
I  may  say,  the  fact   itself  seems  certain  enough ;  nay  we  20 
can  trace-out''  the  inevitable  ntcessity  of  it  in  the  nature 
of  things.      Kvery   man,   as   I   have   stated    somewhere,  is 
not  only  a  learner  but  a  doer  :  he  learns  with  the  mind 
given  him    what  has  been;    but   with  the  same   mind   he 
discovers  farther,  he  invents  and  devises  somewhat  of  his 
own.     Absolutely  without  originality  there  is  no  man.     No 
man  whatever  believes,  or  can   believe,  exactly  what  his 
grandfather  believed  :  he  enlarges  somewhat,  by  fresh  dis- 
covery, his  view  of   the   ITniverse.  and   consequently  his 
Theorem  of  the  Universe, —  which  is  an  /////////,■  Universe,  30 
and  can  never  be  embraced  wholly  or  finally  by  any  view 
or  Theorem,  in  any  conceivable  enlargement :  lie  enlarges 

>  H"  H-  IP  shaken  off  J  H'  !F  IP  highly  discursive 

3  H'  H»  H'  trace  out 


w 


136 


LF.C TUNES   ON  IIKKO/.S 


r   I 

i  ., 
I  i 

4 


li 


somewhat,  I  say  :  iiiids  somewhat  that  was  credible  to  his 
grandfather  incredible  to  him,  false  to  him,  inconsistent 
with  some  new  thing  he  has  discovered  or  observed.  It  is 
the  history  of  every  man  ;  and  in  the  history  of  Mankind 
we  see  it  summed-up '  into  great  historical  amounts,  — 
revolutions,  new  epochs.  Dante's  Mountain  of  I'urgatory 
doe  i  //()/  stand  'in  the  ocean  of  the  other  Hemisphere,' 
when  Coluinhus  has  once  sailed  thither  !  Men  find  no  such 
thing  extant    in  the  other    l^Iemisphere.     It  is  not  there. 

13  It  must  cease  to  be  believed  to  be  there.  Sr  with  all 
beliefs  whatsoever  in  this  world,—  all  Systems  of  IJelief, 
and  Systems  of   I'r.ictice  that  spring  from  these. 

If  we  add  now  the  melancholy  fact,  that  when  Belief 
waxes  uncertain,  i'ractice  too  becomes  unsound,  and  errors, 
injustices  and  miseries  everywhere  more  and  more  prevail, 
we  shall  see  material  enough  for  revolution.  At  all  turns, 
a  man  who  will  ,/(f  faithfully,  needs  to  believe  firmly.  If  he 
have  to  ask  at  every  turn  the  world's  suffrage  ;  if  he  cannot 
dispense  with  the  world's  suffrage,  and  make  his  own  suf- 

23  frage  serve,  he  is  a  poor  eye-servant ;  the  work  committed 
to  him  will  be  wmlone.  F-very  such  man  is  a  daily  con 
tributor  to  the  inevitable  downfall.-  Whatsoever  work  ho 
does,  dishonestly,  with  an  eye  to  the  outward  look  of  it,  is 
a  new  offence,  parent  of  new  misery  to  somebody  or  other. 
Offences  accumulate  till  they  become  insupportable;  and 
are  then  violently  burst  through,  cleared  off  as  by  explo- 
sion. Dante's  sublime  Catholicism,  incredible  now  in  the- 
ory, and  defaced  still  worse  by  faithless,  doubting  anddishon 
est  practice,  has  to  be  torn  asunder  by  a  Luther ;  Shaks 

30  peare's  noble  Feudalism,  as  beautiful  as  it  once  looked  and 
was,  has  to  end  in  a  French  P evolution.  The  accumulation 
of   offences    Is,   as    we    say,   too  literally  exploded,  blasted 

1  II'  IP  IP  summed  up 
a  H«  H»  downfal 


l^tl 


THE  HEKO  AS  PRfEST 


137 


asunder  volcanically  ;  and  there  are  long  troublous  periods 
before  matters  come  to  a  settlement  again. 

Surely  it  were  mournful  enough  to  look  only  at  this  face 
of  the  matter,  and  find  in  all  human  opini  .v.,  and  arrange- 
ments merely  '  the  fact  that  they  were  i  icertain,  icmj  .rary, 
subject  to  the  law  of  death  !     At  bot*  .ai,  u  is  not   io :  all 
death,  here  too  we  find,  is  but  of  tl>    b^dv,  not  of  the 
essence  or  soul ;  all  destruction,  by  violent  revo.ution  or 
howsoever  it  be,   is  but  new  creation  on   a  wider   scale. 
Odinism  was  Valour;  Christianism  was  Humility,  a  nobler  lo 
kind  of  Valour.     No  thought  that  ever  dwelt  honestly  as 
true  in  the  heart  of  man  but  loas  an  honest  insight  into 
God's  truth  on  man's  part,  and  has  an  essential  truth  in  it 
which  endures  through  all  changes,  an  everlasting  posses- 
sion for  us  all.     And,  on  the  other  hand,  what  a  melan- 
choly notion  is  that,  which  has  to  represent  all  men,  in  all 
countries  and  times  except  our  own,  as  having  spent  their 
life  in  blind  condemnable  error,  m^re  lost  Pagans,  Scandi- 
navians, Mahometans,  only  that  we  might  have  the  true 
ultimate  knowledge  !     All  generations  of  men  were  lost  and  20 
wrong,  only  that  this  present  little  section  of  a  generation 
might  be  saved   and    right.     They  all    marched   forward 
there,  all  generations  since  the  beginning  of  the  world,  like 
the  Russian  soldiers  into  the  ditch  of  Schweidnitz   Fort, 
only  to  fill-up'' the  ditch  with  their  dead  bodies,  that  we 
might  march-over '  and  take  the  place  !     It  is  an  incredible 
hypothesis. 

Such  incredible  hypothesis  we  have  seen  maintained  with 
fierce  emphasis  ;  and  this  or  the  other  poor  individual  man, 
with  his  sect  of  individual  men,  marching  as  over  the  dead  30 
bodies  of  all  men,  towards  sure  victory :  but  when  he  too, 
with  his  hypothesis  and  ultimate  infallible  credo,  sank  into 

1  H*  only  •>■  \V  If  H'  fill  up 

•  H'  H»  H^  march  over 


;i 


..pj 


S-«J 


■'■At 

■:•:   .:r 


^11  il 


dL 


138 


LECTURES   OX  HEROES 


1: 


the  ditch,  and  became  a  dead  body,  what  was  to  be  said  ?  — 
Withal,  it  is  an  important  fact  in  the  nature  of  man,  that 
he  tends  to  reckon  his  own  insight  as  final,  and  goes  upon 
it  as  such.  He  will  always  do  it,  I  suppose,  in  one  or  the 
other  way ;  but  it  must  be  in  some  wider,  wiser  way  than 
this.  Are  not  all  true  men  that  Hve,  or  that  ever  lived,  sol- 
diers of  the  same  army,  enlisted,  under  Heaven's  cap- 
taincy, to  do  battle  against  the  same  enemy,  the  empire 
of  Darkness   and  Wrong?     Why  should  we  misknow  one 

10  another,  fight  not  against  the  enemy  but  against  ourselves, 
from  mere  difference  of  uniform?  All  uniforms  shall  be 
good,  so  they  hold  in  them  true  valiant  men.  All  fashions 
of  arms,  the  Arab  turban  and  swift  scimetar,  Thor's  strong 
hammer  smiting  down  Jofuiis,  shall  be  welcome.  Luther's 
battle-voice,  Dante's  march-melody,  all  genuine  things  are 
with  us,  not  against  us.  We  are  all  under  one  Captain, 
soldiers  of  the  same  host.  —  Let  us  now  look  a  little  at  this 
Luther's  fighting ;  what  kind  of  battle  it  was,  and  how  he 
comported  himself  in  it.     Luther  too  was  of  our  spiritual 

20  Heroes ;  a  Prophet  to  his  country  and  time. 

As  introductory  to  the  whole,  a  remark  about  Idolatry 
will  perhaps  be  in  place  here.  One  of  Mahomet's  charac- 
teristics, which  indeed  belongs  to  all  Prophets,  is  unlimited 
implacable  zeal  against  Idolatry.  It  is  the  grand  theme  of 
Prophets:  Idolatry,  the  worshipping  of  dead  Idols  as  the 
Divinity,  is  a  thing  they  cannot  away-with,'  but  have  to' 
denounce  continually,  and  brand  with  inexpiable  reproba- 
tion ;  it  is  the  chief  of  all  the  sins  they  see  done  under  the 
sun.  This  is  worth  noting.  We  will  not  enter  here  into 
30  the  theological  question  about  Idolatry.  Idol  is  Eidolon,  a 
thing  seen,  a  symbol.  It  is  not  God,  but  a  Symbol  of  (lod  ; 
and  perhaus  one  may  question  whether  any  the  most  bc- 
1  1  H'  IP  H'  away  with,  but  must 


THE   HERO   AS  PRIEST 


139 


H  ,  \ 


nighted  mortal  ever  took  it  for  nore  than  a  Symbol.  I 
fancy,  he  did  not  think  that  the  poor  image  his  own  hands 
had  made  was  God  ;  but  that  God  was  emblemed  by  it,  that 
God  was  in  it  some  way  or  other.  And  now  in  this  sense, 
one  may  ask,  Is  not  all  worship  whatsoever  a  worship  by 
Symbols,  by  eidola,  or  things  seen  ?  Whether  seen,  ren- 
dered visible  as  an  image  or  picture  to  the  bodily  eye ;  or 
visible  only  to  the  inward  eye,  to  the  imagination,  to  the 
intellect :  this  makes  a  superficial,  but  no  substantial  dif- 
ference. It  is  still  a  Thing  Seen,  significant  of  Godhead^;  lo 
an  Idol.  The  most  rigorous  Puritan  has  his  Confession  of 
Faith,  and  intellectual  Representation  of  Divine  things,  and 
worships  thereby ;  thereby  is  worship  first  made  possible 
for  him.  All  creeds,  liturgies,  religious  forms,  conceptions 
that  fitly  invest  religious  feelings,  are  in  this  sense  eidola, 
things  seen.  All  worship  whatsoever  must  proceed  by  Sym- 
bols, by  Idols:  -we  may  say,  all  Idolatry  is  comparative, 
and  the  worst  Idolatry  is  only  more  idr>iatrous. 

Where,  then,  lies  the  evil  of  it  ?     Some  fatal  evil  must  lie 
in  it,  or  earnest  prophetic  men  woulr*       )t  on  all  hands  so  20 
reprobate  it.     Why  is  Idolatry  so  h;.  .'Prophets?     It 

seems  to  me  as  if,  in  the  worship  of  th  ■  j^oor  wooden  sym- 
bols, the  thing  that  had  chiefly  provoked  the  Prophet,  and 
filled  his  inmost  soul  with  indignation  and  aversion,  was 
not  exactly  what  suggested  itself  to  his  own  thought,  and 
came  out  of  him  in  words  to  others,  as  the  thing.  'I'he 
rudest  heathen  that  worshipped  C'anopus,  or  the  ("aabah 
Black-Stone,'^  he,  as  we  saw,  was  superior  to  the  horse  that 
worshipped  nothing  at  all !  Nay  the  ..'as  a  kind  of  last- 
ing merit  in  that  poor  act  of  his ;  analogous  to  what  is  still  2,0 
meritorious  in  Poets :  recognition  of  a  certain  endless 
divine  beauty  and  significance  in  stars  and  all  natural 
objects  whatsoever.     Why  should   the  Prophet   so  merci- 

1  H'  IP  Godhood  •*  H'  Black-stone 


n 


0- 
.... 

2v. 


m 


ir'-'i 


140 


LECTURES   ON  HEROES 


lessly  condemn  him  ?  The  poorest  mortal  worshipping  his 
Fetish,  while  his  heart  is  full  of  it,  may  be  an  object  of 
pity,  of  contempt  and  avoidance,  if  you  will ;  but  cannot 
surely  be  an  object  of  hatred.  Let  his  heart  be  honestly 
full  of  it,  the  whole  space  of  his  dark  narrow  mind  illumi- 
nated thereby  ;  in  one  word,  let  him  entirely  bdirrc  in  his 
Fetish,  -  it  will  then  be,  I  should  say,  if  not  well  with  him, 
yet  as  well  as  it  can  readily  be  made  to  be,  and  you  will 
leave  him  alone,  unmolested  there. 
10  But  here  enters  the  fatal  circumstance  of  Idolatry,  that, 
in  the  era  of  the  Prophets,  no  man's  mind  is  any  'onger 
honestly  tilled  with  his  Idol  or  Symbol.  Before  the 
I?  Prophet   can  arise  who,   seeing    through   it,   knows   it  to 

I  be  mere  wood,  many  men  must  have  begun  dimly  to  doubt 

that  it  was  little  more,  ("ondemnable  Idolatry  is  insimerc 
Idolatry.  Doubt  has  eaten-out'  the  heart  of  it :  a  human 
soul  is  seen  clinging  spasmodically  to  an  Ark  of  the  tove- 
nant,  which  it  half-feels  now  to  have  become  a  Phantasm. 
This  is  one  of  the  balefulest  -  sights.  Souls  are  no  longer 
20  jilhd  with  their  Fetish  ;  but  only  pretend  to  be  filled,  and 
would  fain  make  themselves  feel  that  they  are  filled.  "  Vou 
do  not  believe,"  said  Coleridge;  "you  only  believe  that 
you  believe."  It  is  the  final  scene  in  all  kinds  of  Worship 
and  Symbolism;  the  sure  symptom  that  death  is  now  nigh. 
It  is  equivalent  to  what  we  call  Formulism,  and  Worship  of 
Formulas,  in  these  days  of  ours.  No  more  immoral  act 
can  be  done  by  a  human  creature ;  for  it  is  the  beginning 
of  all  immorality,  or  rather  it  is  the  impossibility  hence- 
forth of  any  morality  whatsoever :  the  innermost  moral 
30  soul  is  paralysed "  thereby,  cast  into  fatal  magnetic  sleep ! 
Men  are  no  longer  sincere  men.  I  do  not  wonder  that  the 
earnest  man  denounces  this,  brands  it,  prosecutes  it  with 

1  11'  11-  IP  eaten  out  -  FP  balefuUest 

»  W  11=  paralyzed 


THE   I'KNO  AS  PRIEST 


HI 


inextinguishable  aversion.  He  and  il,  ail  good  and  it,  are 
at  death-feud.  iJlamable '  Idolatry  is  L\iiit,  and  even  what 
one  may  call  Sincere-Cant.  Sincere-!  ant :  tliat  is  worth 
thinking  of!  Every  sort  of  Worship  ends  with  this 
phasis.-' 

I  find  Luther  to  have  been  a  Breaker  of  Idols,  no  less 
than  any  other  Prophet.  The  wooden  gods  of  the  Koreish, 
made  of  timber  and  bees-wa.x,'  were  not  more  hateful  to 
Mahomet  than  Tetzel's  Pardons  of  Sin,  made  of  sheepskin 
and  ink,  were  to  Luther.  It  is  the  property  of  every  Hero,  lo 
in  every  time,  in  every  place  and  situation,  that  he  come 
back  to  reality  ;  that  he  stand  upon  things,  and  not  shows  ' 
of  things.  According  as  he  loves,  and  venerates,  articu- 
lately or  with  deep  speechless  thought,  the  awful  realities 
of  things,  so  will  the  hollow  shows"'  of  things,  however  reg- 
ular, decorous,  accredited  by  Koreishes  or  Conclaves,  be 
intolerable  and  detestable  to  him.  Protestantism  too  is 
the  work  of  a  Prophet  :  the  prophet-work  of  that  sixteenth 
century,  v  The  first  stroke  of  honest  demolition  to  an 
ancient  thing  grown  false  and  idolatrous  ;  preparatory  afar  20 
otT  to  a  new  thing,  which  shall  be  true,  and  authentically 
divine !  — 

At  first  view  it  might  seem  as  if  Protestantism  were 
entirely  destructive  to  this  tliat  we  call  Hero-worshi]),  and 
represent  as  the  basis  of  all  possible  good,  religious  or 
social,  for  mankind.  One  often  hears  it  said  thai  Protes- 
tantism introduced  a  new  era,  radically  different  from  any 
the  world  had  ever  seen  before:  the  era  of  '  private  judgment,' 
as  they  call  it.  v  By  this  revolt  against  the  Pope,  every  man 
became  his  own  Pope;  and  learnt,  among  other  things,  30 
that  he   must   never   trust   any    Pope,   or    spiritual    Hero- 

t  H'  H-  IJlameahlc  ■>  II'  II-  i)ut>-\v.ix 

«  no  paragraph  in  II'  IP  IP  «  IP  I  P  >luvvs 

5  IP  IP  IPsluws 


\v 


Mi 

kit  f' 

f.r. 


Js  - 


f  T 


I. 

I'" 


m\ 


142 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


captain,  any  more  !  Whereby,  is  not  spiritual  union,  all 
hierarchy  and  subordination  among  men,  henceforth  an 
impossibility  ?  So  we  hear  it  said.  -  Now  I  need  not  deny 
that  Protestantism  was  a  revolt  against  spiritual  sovereign- 
ties. Popes  and  much  else.  Nay  I  will  grant  that  Eng- 
lish Puritanism,  revolt  against  earthly  sovereignties,  was 
the  second  act  of  it ;  that  the  enormous  French  Revo- 
lution itself  was  the  third  act,  whereby  all  sovereignties 
earthly  and   spiritual  were,   as  might  seem,   abolished   or 

lo  made  sure  of  abolition.  Protestantism  is  the  grand  root 
from  which  our  whole  subsequent  European  History 
branches  out.  For  the  spiritual  will  always  body  itself  forth 
in  the  temporal  history  of  men  ;  the  spiritual  is  the  begin- 
ning of  the  temporal.  And  now,  sure  enough,  the  cry  is 
everywhere  for  Liberty  and  Equality,  Independence  and  so 
forth;  instead  of  Kings,  Ballot-boxes  and  Electoral  suf- 
frages :  it  seems  made  out  that  any  Hero-sovereign,  or  loyal 
obedience  of  men  to  a  man,  in  things  temporal  or  things 
spiritual,  has  passed  away  forever  from  the  world.     I  should 

20  despair  of  the  world  altogether,  if  so.  One  of  my  deepest 
convictions  is,  that  it  is  not  so.  Without  sovereigns,  true 
sovereigns,  temporal  and  spiritual,  I  see  nothing  possible 
but  an  anarchy ;  the  hatefulest '  of  things.  But  I  find 
Protestantism,  whatever  anarchic  democracy  it  have  pro- 
duced, to  be  the  beginning  of  new  genuine  sovereignty  and 
order.  I  find  it  to  be  a  revolt  against  /^//.f<' sovereigns  ;  the 
painful  but  indispensable  first  preparative  for  true  sover- 
eigns getting  place  among  us!  This  is  worth  explaining  a 
little. 

y  Let  us  remark,  therefore,  in  the  first  place,  that  this  of 
'  private  judgment '  is,  at  bottom,  not  a  new  thing  in  the 
world,  but  oni_,  new  at  that  epoch  of  the  world.  There  is 
nothing  generically  new  or  peculiar  in  the  Reformation  ;  it 

1  IP  hatefuUest 


THE   //KA'O   AS  rh'/EST 


143 


was  a  return  to    Irutli  and  Reality  in  opposition  to  lalse- 
hood  and  Sen>l)lance,    as   all    kinds   of    Improvement   and 
•'enuine    I'eaehing  are  and  have  been.      Liberty  of  private 
judgment,   if   we  will  consider   it,   must  at  all   times  have 
existed  in  the  world.      Dante  iiad  not  put-out'  his  eyes,  or 
tied  shackles  on  himself;  he  was  at  home  in  that  (  atholi- 
cism  of  his,  a  free-seeing  soul  in  it,  —  if  many  a  poor  liogs- 
traten,   I'etzel  and   Dr.  Kck  had  now  become  slaves  in   il. 
Liberty  of  judgment  ?     No  iron  chain,  or  outward  force  of 
any  kind,  could  ever  compel  the  soul  of  a  man  to  believe  lo 
or  to  disbelieve :   it  is  his  own  indefeasible  light,  that  judg- 
ment of   his  ;  he  will  reign,  and  believe  there,  by  the  grace 
of  (lod  alone  !     The  sorriest  sophistical  IJellarmine,  preach- 
in"  si-rhtless  faith  and   passive   obedience,  must  first,  by 
some  kind  of  amridion,  have  abdicated  his  right  to  be  con- 
vinced.     His  'private  judgment'    indicated    that,    as    the 
advisablest  step  he  could  take.     The  right  of  private  judg- 
ment will  subsist,  in  full  force,  wherever  true  men  subsist. 
A  true  man  lu-lir,\-s  with  his  whole  judgment,  with  all  the 
illumination  and  discernment  that  is  in  him,  and  has  always  20 
so  believed.     A  false  man,  only  struggling  to  'believe  that 
he  believes,'  will  naturally  manage  it  in  some  other  way. 
Protestantism  said  to  this  latter.  Woe  !  and  to  the  former, 
Well  done  !      At  bottom,  it  was  no  new  saying  ;   it  was  a 
return  to  all  old  sayings  that  ever  had  been  said,     lie  gen- 
uine, be 'sincere:  that  was,  once  more,  the  meaning  of  it. 
Mahomet  believed   with  his   whole   mind;   Odin   with   his 
whole    mind,  —he,    and    all    true    Followers    of    Odinism. 
They,  by  their  private  judgment,  had  '  judged '-- at?. 

And  now  I  venture  to  assert,  that  the  exercise  of  private  30 
judgment,  faithfully  gone  about,  does  by  no  means  neces- 
sarily end  in  selfish  independence,  isolation  - ;  but  rather 
ends  necessarily  in  the  opposite  of  that.     It  is  not  honest 
1  W  H'  IP  put  out  -  H'  H^  isolation, 


■I 


144 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


i 


t 
i 


inquiry  that  makes  anarchy ;  but  it  is  error,  insincerity, 
half-belief  and  untruth  that  make  •  it.  A  man  protesting 
against  error  is  on  the  way  towards  uniting  himself  with  all 
men  that  believe  in  truth.  There  is  no  communion  pos- 
sible among  men  who  believe  only  in  hearsays.  The  heart 
of  each  is  lying  dead  ;  has  no  power  of  sympathy  even  with 
things,  —  or  he  would  believe  them  and  not  hearsays.  No 
sympathy  even  with  things  ;  how  much  less  with  his  fellow- 
men  !     He  cannot  unite  with  men ;  he  is  an  anarchic  man. 

lo  Only  in  a  world  of  sincere  men  is  unity  possible ;  —  and 
there,  in  the  longrun,'  it  is  as  good  as  certain. 

For  observe  one  thing,  a  thing  too  often  left  out  of  view, 
or  rather  altogether  lost  sight  of,  in"*  this  controversy: 
That  it  is  not  necessary  a  man  should  himself  have  discov- 
ered iht  truth  he  is  to  believe  in,  and*  never  so  sincerely  to 
believe  in.*  A  Great  Man,  we  said,  was  always  sincere,  as 
the  first  condition  of  him.  But  a  man  need  not  be  great 
in  order  to  be  sincere  ;  that  is  not  the  necessity  of  Nature 
and    all    Time,    but  only  of    certain    corrupt    unfortunate 

20  epochs  of  Time.  A  man  can  believe,  and  make  his  own, 
in  the  most  genuine  way,  what  he  has  received  from  an- 
oth4er  ;  —  and  with  boundless  gratitude  to  that  other  !  The 
merit  of  originality  is  not  novelty :  it  is  sincerity.  The 
believing  man  is  the  original  man  ;  whatsoever  he  believes, 
he  bdkves  it  for  himself,  not  for  another.  Every  son  of 
Adam  cafl  become  a  sincere  man,  an  original  man,  in  this 
sense  ;  no  nuy*-tal  is  doomed  to  he  an  insincere  man.  Whole- 
ages,  what  we  call  ages  of  Faith,  are  original ;  all  men  in 
them,  or  the  most  of  men  in  them,  sincere.     These  are  the 

30  great  and  fruitful  ages :  ev«ry  worker,  in  all  spheres,  is  .1 
worker  not  on  semblance  but  vn  substance  ;  every  work 
issues  in  a  result 


the  general  sum  -->f  such  work  is  great , 


1  II'  II'  H^  makes 
*  M'  H»  HMong-run 


='  W  IPo<in 

*  <  H'  never  -lo  sincerely. 


THE  HERO  AS  PKIEST 


145 


for  all  of  it,  as  genuine,  tends  towards  one  goal ;  all  of  it 
is  addith'e,  none  of  it  subtractive.  'I'here  is  true  union,  true 
kingship,  loyp'ty,  all  true  and  blessed  things,  so  far  as  the 
poor  Karth  ca.i  produce  blessedness  for  men.' 

•  Hero-worship  ?     Ah  me,  that  a  man  be  self-subsistent, 
original,  true,  or  what  we  call  it,  is  surely  the  farthest  in 
the  world  from  indisposing  him  to  reverence  and  believe 
other  men's  truth  !     It  only  disposes,  necessitates  and  in- 
vincibly compels  him  to  ^//jbelieve  other  men's  dead  for- 
mulas, hearsays  and  untruths.     A  man  embraces  truth  with  lo 
his  eyes  open,  and  because  his  eyes  are  open  :  does  he 
need  to  shut  them  before  he  can  love  his  Teacher  of  truth  .' 
He  alone  can  love,  with  a  right  gratitude  and  genuine  loy- 
alty of  soul,  the  Hero-Teacher  who  has  delivered  him  out 
of  darkness  into  light.     Is  not  such  a  one  a  true  Hero  and 
Serpent-queller ;  worthy  of  all  reverence!      The  black  mon- 
ster. Falsehood,  our  one  enemy  in  this  world,  lies  prostrate 
by  his  valour ;  it  was  he  that  conquered  the  world  for  us ! 
—  See,  accordingly,  was  not  Luther  himself  reverenced  as 
a  true  Pope,  or  Spiritual  Father,  M'//^'  verily  such  ?     Napo- 
leon, from  amid  boundless  revolt  of  Sansculottism,  became 
a  King.      Hero-worship  never  dies,  nor  can  die.     Loyalty 
and  Sovereignty  are  everlasting  in  the  world  :  —  and  there 
is  this  in  them,  that  they  are  grounded    xA  on  garnitures 
and  semblances,  but  on  realities  and  sincerities.     \ot  by 
shutting  your  eyes,  your  '  private  judgment ; '  no,  but  by 
opening  them,  and  by  having  something  to  see  !     Luther's 
message  was  deposition  and  abolition  to  all  false  Popes  and 
Potentates,  but  life  and  strength,  though  afar  off,  to  new 
genuine  ones. 

All  this. of  Liberty  and  Equality,  Electoral  suffrages, 
Independence  and  so  forth,  \vc  will  take,  therefore,  to  be  a 
temporary  phenomenon,  by  no  means  a  final  one.     Though 

'  no  paragraph  tn  II'  IP  IP 


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30 


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5.- 

..•  . 

. 

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s    • 

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i 


146 


I.ECrUKES  ON  lltlKOh.S 


likely  to  last  a  long  time,  with  sad  enou;,'h  umltroilrnc-nts  for 
us  all,  we  must  welcome  it.  as  the  pen.ilty  of  sins  that  are 
past,  the  pledge  of  inestimable  benefits  that  are  comin;,'. 
In  all  ways,  it  behovetl  men  to  c|iiit  simulacra  and  return 
to  fact;  cost  what  it  might,  that  did  behove  to  be  done. 
With  spurious  I'opes,  and  Helievtrs '  having  no  private 
judgment,  —quacks  pretending  to  command  over  dupes,  - 
what  can  you  do?  Misery  and  mischief  only.  Vou  can 
not  make  an  association  out  of  insincere  men ;  you  cannot 

lo  build  an  edifice  except  by  plummet  and  level,  —  at  rit^ht- 
angles  to  one  another  !  In  all  this  wild  revolutionary  work, 
from  Protestantism  downwards,  I  see  the  blessedest  result 
preparing  i  .[-.  not  abolition  of  Hero-worship,  but  rather 
what  I  would  call  a  whole  World  of  Heroes.  If  Hero  mean 
sincere  man,  why  may  not  every  one  of  us  be  a  Hero  ?  .\ 
world  all  sincere,  a  believing  world :  the  like  has  been  ;  the 
like  will  again  be,  —  cannot  he!;-  i  eing.  That  were  the 
right  sort  of  Worshippers  for  licjoes:  never  could  the 
truly  Better  be  so  reverenced  as  where  all  were  True  and 

20  Good  !  —  But  we  must  hasten  to  Luther  and  his  Life. 


Luther's  bl.-thplace  was  Kisleben  in  Saxony ;  he  came 
into  the  world  there  on  the  loth  of  November  14H3.  It 
was  an  accident  that  gave  this  honour  to  Kisleben.  His 
parents,  poor  mine-labourers  in  a  village  of  that  region, 
named  Mohra,  had  gone  to  the  Kisleben  Winter-Fair :  in 
the  tumult  of  this  scene  the  Krau  Luther  was  taken  with 
travail,  found  refuge  in  some  poor  house  there,  and  the  boy 
she  bore  was  named  Martin  LirrnKK.  Strange  enough  to 
reflect  upon  it.  This  poor  Frau  Luther,  she  had  gone  with 
30  her  husband  to  make  her  small  merchandisings ;  perhaps 
to  sell  the  lock  of  yarn  she  had  been  spinning,  to  buy  the 
small  winter-necessaries  for  her  narrow  hut  or  household : 

^  H'  believers 


'Aii 


TIN:    IIEKO   AS   PNIEST 


147 


in  the  whole  world,  that  day,  there  w;is  not  .1  more  entirely 
unimportant-looking  pair  of  i)eople  than  this  Miner  and 
his  Wifo.  And  yet  what  were  all  Kmperors,  I'ojjes  and 
Potentates,  in  comparison  ?  i'liere  was  born  here,  once 
more,  a  Mijjhty  Man  ;  whose  li};ht  was  to  tlame  as  the  bea- 
con over  long  centuries  and  epochs  of  the  world ;  the  whole 
world  and  its  history  was  waiting  for  this  man.  It  is 
strange,  it  is  great.  It  leads  us  back  to  another  Hirth- 
hour,  in  a  still  meaner  environment,  Kighteen  Hundred 
years  ago, — of  which  it  is  fit  that  we  say  nothing,  that  10 
we  think  only  in  silence  ;  for  what  words  are  there  !  The 
Age  of  Miracles  past.'  The  .Age  of  Miracles  is  forever 
here !    - 

I  find  it  altogether  suitable  to  Luther's  function  in  this 
Earth,  and  doubtless  wisely  ordered  to  that  end  by  the 
Providence  presiding  over  him  and  us  and  all  things,  that 
he  was  born  poor,  and  brought-up  '  poor,  one  of  the  poorest 
of  men.  He  had  to  beg,  as  the  scliool-children  in  those 
times  did ;  singing  for  alms  and  brt-ad,  from  door  to  door. 
Hardship,  rigorous  Necessity  was  the  poor  boy's  compaii-  20 
ion ;  no  man  nor  no  thing  would  put-on  a  false  face  to 
flatter  Martin  Luther.  Among  thinj^s,  not  among  the 
shows*  of  things,  had  he  to  grow.  A  hoy  of  rude  figure, 
yet  with  weak  health,  with  his  large  greedy  soul,  full  of  all 
faculty  and  sensibility,  he  suffered  greatly.  Hut  it  was  his 
task  to  get  acquainted  with  rcalitits,  and  keep  acquainted 
with  them,  at  whatever  cost :  his  task  was  to  bring  the 
whole  world  back  to  reality,  for  it  had  dwelt  too  long  with 
semblance!  A  youth  nursed-up'^  in  wintry  whirlwinds,  in 
desolate  darkness  and  difficulty,  thai  he  may  step-forth  *  at  3° 
last  from  his  stormy  Scandinavia,  strong  as  a  true  man,  as 
a  god :  a  Christian  Odin,  —  a  right  Thor  oncc  more,  with 


H 

!■:,■■■ 
:;5  • 

■'I 


»  H'  H»  W  brought  up 
!»H'  IP  shews 


•M!"  n-  IP  nursed  up 
Ml'  H'  IP  step  forth 


ii 


Il 


148 


LECTUKES  ON  ItEROES 


his  thunder-hammer,  to  smite  asunder  ugly  enough  Jolum 
and  (Mant-monsters ! 

I'erh.ips  the  turning  incident  of  his  life,  we  may  fancy, 
was  that  death  of  his  friend  Alexis,  »)y  lightning,  at  tin- 
gate  of  Krfurt.  Luther  had  struggled-up  '  through  boyhood, 
better  and  worse;  displaying,  in  spite  of  all  hindrances, 
the  largest  intellect,  eager  to  learn  :  his  father  judginj; 
doubtless  that  he  might  promote  himself  in  the  world,  set 
him  upon  the  study  of  Law.      This  was  the  path  to  rise ; 

lo  Luther,  with  little  will  in  it  either  way,  had  consented :  he- 
was  now  nineteen  years  of  age.  Alexis  and  he  had  been 
to  see  the  old  Luther  people  at  Mansfeldt ;  were  got  back 
again  near  Krfurt,  when  a  thunderstorm  came  on  ;  the  bolt 
struck  Alexis,  he  fell  dead  at  Luther's  feet.^  What  is  this 
Life  of  ours  ?•■'—- gone  in  a  minute,  burnt-up  *  like  a  scroll. 
into  the  blank  Eternity  !  What  are  all  earthly  preferments, 
Chancellorships,  Kingships  ?  They  lie  shrunk  together 
there !  The  Earth  has  opened  on  them ;  in  a  moment 
they  are  not,  and  Eternity  is.      Luther,  struck  to  the  heart. 

ao  determined  to  devote  himself  to  (lod  and  (lod's  servict 
alone.  In  spite  of  all  dissuasions  from  his  father  and 
others,  he  became  a  Monk  in  the  Augustine  Convent  at 
Erfurt. 

This  was  probably  the  first  light-point  in  the  history  ot 
Luther,  his  purer  will  now  first  decisively  uttering  itself ; 
but,  for  the  present,  it  was  still  as  one  light-point  in  an  cle 
ment  all  of  darkness.  He  says  he  was  a  pious  monk,  i.' 
bin  ein  fromnur  Moiuh  frnerscn ;  faithfully,  painfully  strui; 
gling  to  work-out''  the  truth  of  this  high  act  of  his;  but  it 

30  was  to  little  purpose.      His  misery  had  not  lessened;  ha 


rather,  as  it  were,  increased  into  infinitude. 


I'he  drudgcr 


1  H'  IP  W  struggled  up  Ml'  ours  ;  — 

^H'  Unhand  MI'  IP  H^  burnt  up 

'  11'  II-  W  work  out 


THE   llEkO  AS  I'klEST 


149 


ics  he  had  to  do,  as  novice  in  his  (  onve nt,  all  sorts  of 
slave-work,  were  not  his  grievance;  the  deep  earnest  soul 
of  the  man  had  fallen  into  all  manner  uf  black  scruples, 
dubitations ;  he  believed  himself  likely  tu  die  soon,  and  far 
worse  than  die.  One  hears  with  a  new  interest  for  j)oor 
Luther  that,  at  this  time,  he  lived  in  terror  of  the  un- 
speakable misery  ;  fancied  that  he  was  doomed  to  eternal 
reprobation.  Was  it  not  the  humble  sincere  nature  of  the 
man  ?  What  was  he,  that  he  should  be  raised  to  Heaven  ! 
He  that  had  known  only  misery,  and  mean  slavery  :  the  lo 
news  was  too  blessed  to  be  credible.  It  could  not  become 
clear  to  him  how,  by  fasts,  vi>;ils,  formalities  and  mass- 
work,  a  man's  soul  could  be  saved.  He  fell  into  the 
blackest  wretchedness ;  had  to  wander  staggering  as  on 
the  verge  of  bottomless  Despair. 

It  must  have  been  a  most  blessed  discovery,  that  of 
an  old  Latin  Bible  which  he  found  in  the  Krfurt  Library 
about  this  time.  He  had  never  seen  the  Hook  before.  It 
taught  him  another  lesson  than  that  of  fasts  and  vigils. 
A  brother  monk  too,  of  pious  experience,  was  helpful.  20 
Luther  learned  now  that  a  man  was  saved  not  by  singing 
masses,  but  by  the  infinite  grace  of  (lod:  a  more  credible 
hypothesis.  He  gradu.ally  got  himself  founded,  as  on  the 
rock,  "^o  wonder  he  should  venerate  the  Bible,  which  had 
brought  this  blessed  help  to  him.  He  prized  it  as  the 
Word  of  the  Highest  must  be  prized  by  such  a  man.  He 
determined  to  hold  by  that  ;  as  through  life  and  to  death 
he  firmly  did. 

This,  then,  is  his  deliverance  from  darkness,  his  final 
triumph  over  darkness,  what  we  call  his  conversion  ;  for  3° 
himself  the  most  important  of  all  epochs.  That  he  should 
now  grow  daily  in  peace  and  clearness ;  that,  unfolding 
now  the  great  talents  and  virtues  implanted  in  him,  he 
should  rise  to  importance  in  his  Convent,  in  his  country, 


I 


,  5  ^>{l 


ISO 


LECTURES   OiX  JtEROES 


and  be  found  more  and  more  useful  in  all  honest  business 
of  life,  is  a  natural  result.  He  was  sent  on  missions  by  his 
Augustine  Order,  as  a  man  of  talent  and  fidelity  fit  to  do 
their  business  well :  the  Elector  of  Saxony,  Friedrich, 
named  the  Wise,  a  truly  wise  and  just  prince,  had  cast  his 
eye  on  him  as  a  valuable  person ;  made  him  Professor  in 
his  new  University  of  Wittenberg.  Preacher  too  at  Witten- 
berg ;  in  both  which  capacities,  as  in  all  duties  he  did,  this 
L'lther,  in  the  peaceable  sphere  of  common  life,  was  gaining 

lo  more  and  more  esteem  with  all  good  men. 

It  was  in  his  twenty-seventh  year  that  he  first  saw  Rome  ; 
being  sent  thither,  as  I  said,  on  mission  from  his  Convent. 
Pope  Julius  the  Second,  and  what  was  going-on '  at  Rome, 
must  have  filled  the  mind  of  Luther  with  amazement. 
He  had  come  as  to  the  Sacred  City,  throne  of  (Jod's  High- 
priest  on  Karth  ;  and  he  found  it  —  what  we  know  !  Many 
thoughts  it  must  have  given  the  man  ;  many  which  we 
have  no  record  of,  wnich  perhaps  he  did  not  himself  know 
how   to  utter.     This    Rome,    this  scene  of   false    priests, 

20  clothed  not  in  the  beauty  of  holiness,  but  in  far  other  ves- 
ture, \% false:  but  what  is  it  to  Luther?  A  mean  man  he, 
how  shall  he  reform  a  world  ?  That  was  far  from  his 
thoughts.  A  humble,  solitary  man,  why  should  he  at  all 
meddle  with  the  world  ?  It  was  the  task  of  quite  higher 
men  than  he.  His  business  was  to  guide  his  own  footsteps 
wisely  through  the  world.  Let  him  do  his  own  obscure 
duty  in  it  well  ;  the  rest,  horrible  and  dismal  as  it  looks,  is 
in  Cod's  hand,  not  in  his. 

It  is  curious  to  reflect  what  might  have  been  the  issue, 

30  had  Roman  Popery  happened  to  pass  this  Luther  by ;  to 
go  on  in  its  great  wasteful  orbit,  and  not  come  athwart 
his  little  path,  and  force  him  to  assault  it !  Conceivable 
enough  that,  in  tuis  case,  he  might  have  held  his  peace 

» H»  H»  H3  going  on 


THK   IIIIKO   AS  PKIKST 


151 


about  the  abuses  of  Rome ;  left  Providence,  and  (lod  on 
high,  to  deal  with  them  !  A  modest  quiet  man  ;  not  prompt 
he  to  attack  irrevcently  persons  in  authority-  His  clear 
task,  as  I  say,  was  to  do  his  own  duty  ;  to  walk  wisely  in 
this  wor'd  of  confused  wickedness,  and  save  his  own  soul 
aiive.  But  the  Roman  High  priesthood  did  come  athwart 
him :  afar  off  at  Wittenberg  he,  Luther,  could  not  get  lived 
in  honesty  for  it ;  he  remonstrated,  resisted,  came  to  ex- 
tremity ;  was  struck-at,*  struck  again,  and  so  it  came  to 
wager  of  battle  between  them  !  This  is  worth  attending  to  lo 
in  Luther's  history.  I'erhaps  no  man  of  so  humble,  peace- 
able a  disposition  ever  tilled  the  world  with  contention. 
We  cannot  but  see  that  he  would  have  loved  privacy,  quiet 
diligence  in  the  shade ;  that  it  was  against  his  will  he  ever 
beca..ie  a  notoriety.  Notoriety :  what  would  that  do  for 
him  ?  I'he  goal  of  his  march  through  this  world  was  the 
Infinite  Heaven;  an  indubitable  goal  for  him:  in  a  few 
years,  he  should  either  have  attained  that,  or  lost  it  for- 
ever !  We  will  say  nothing  at  all,  I  think,  of  that  sorrow- 
fulest  *  of  theories,  of  its  being  some  mean  shopkeeper  20 
grudge,  of  the  Augustine  Monk  against  the  Dominican, 
that  first  kindled  the  wrath  of  Luther,  and  produced  the 
Protestant  Reformation.  We  will  say  to  the  people  who 
maintain  it,  if  indeed  any  such  exist  now :  Clet  first  into 
the  sphere  of  thought  by  which  it  is  so  much  as  possible  to 
judge  of  Luther,  or  of  any  man  like  Luther,  otherwise  than 
distractedly;  we  may  then  begin  arguing  with  you. 

The    Monk    Tetzel,  sent    out    carelessly   in   the  way   of 
trade,  by   Leo  Tenth,  —  who    merely    wanted    to    raise    a 
little  money,  and  for  the  rest  seems  to  have  been  a  Pagan  3° 
rather    than  a    Christian,    so  far  as  he  was  anything, 
arrived    at   Wittenberg,    and    drove  his  scandalous  trade 
there.     Luther's  flock  bought  Indulgences;  in  the  confes- 

1  H'  H"  IP  struck  at  «  H'  sorrowfullest 


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152 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


sional  of  his  Church,  people  pleaded  to  him  that  they  had 
already  got  their  sins  pardoned.  Luther,  if  he  would  not 
be  found  wanting  at  his  own  post,  a  false  sluggard  and 
coward  at  the  very  centre  of  the  little  space  of  ground  that 
was  his  own  and  no  other  man's,  had  to  step-forth  '  against 
Indulgences,  and  declare  aloud  that  they  were  a  futility  and 
sorrowful  mockery,  that  no  man's  sins  could  be  pardoned 
by  them.  It  was  the  beginning  of  the  whole  Reformation. 
We  know  how  it  went ;  forward  from  this  first  public  chal- 

10  lenge  of  Tetzel,  on  the  last  day  of  October  1517,  through 
remonstrance  and  argument ;  —  spreading  ever  wider,  rising 
ever  higher ;  till  it  became  unquenchable,  and  enveloped 
all  the  world.  Luther's  heart's-desire  *  was  to  have  this 
grief  and  other  griefs  amended  ;  his  thought  was  still  far  ' 
other  than  that  of  introducing'  separation  in  the  Church, 
or  revolting  against  the  Pope,  Father  of  Christendom.  — 
The  elegant  Pagan  Pope  cared  little  about  this  Monk  and 
his  doctrines ;  wished,  however,  to  have  done  with  the 
noise  of  him :  in  a  space  of  some  three  years,  having  tried 

20  various  softer  methods,  he  thought  good  to  end  it  by  fire. 
He  dooms  the  Monk's  writings  to  be  burnt  by  the  hang- 
man, and  his  body  to  be  sent  bound  to  Rome,  —  probably 
for  a  similar  purpose.  It  was  the  way  they  had  ended  with 
Huss,  with  Jerome,  the  century  before.  A  short  argument, 
fire.  Poor  Huss:  he  came  to  that  Constance*  Council, 
with  all  imaginable  promises  and  safe-conducts  ;  an  earnest, 
not  rebellious  kind  of  man :  they  laid  him  instantly  in  a 
stone  dungeon  *  three-feet  *  wide,  six-feet  ®  high,  seven-feet ' 
long;'    burnt  the  true  voice*  of  him  out*  of  this  world; 

30  choked  it  in  smoke  and  fire.     That  was  not  well  done  I 


1  H"  H''  H'  step  forth 

2  H'  heart's  desire 

•  *  H'  H*  far  from  introducing 

*  H»  Constant 


6IP  n»  HMhreefeet 
»H'  IP  IP  six  feet 
7  H"  H»  H»  seven  feet 
•«H'  H*  voice  out 


THE  HERO   AS  PRIEST 


153 


I,  for  one,  pardon  Luther  for  now  altogether  revolting 
against  the  Pope.  The  elegant  Pagan,  by  this  fire-decree 
of  his,  had  kindled  into  noble  just  wrath  the  bravest  heart 
then  living  in  this  world.  The  bravest,  if  also  one  of  the 
humblest,  peaceablest ;  it  was  now  kindled.  These  words 
of  mine,  words  of  truth  and  soberness,  aiming  faithfully,  as 
hunun  inability  would  allow,  to  promote  God's  truth  on 
Earth,  and  save  men's  souls,  you,  God's  vicegerent  on  earth, 
answer  them  by  the  hangman  and  fire  ?  You  will  burn  me 
and  them,  for  answer  to  the  God's-message  they  strove  lo 
to  bring  you  ?  You  are  not  God's  vicegerent ;  you  are 
another's '  than  his,*  I  think !  I  take  your  Bull,  as  an 
emparchmented  Lie,  and  burn  //.  You  will  do  what  you 
see  good  next :  this  is  what  I  do. —  It  was  on  the  loth  -  of 
December  1520,  three  years  after  the  beginning  of  the 
business,  that  Luther,  'with  a  great  concourse  of  people,' 
took  this  indignant  step  of  burning  the  Pope's  fire-decree 
'at"  the  Elster-Gate  of  Wittenberg.'"  Wittenberg  looked 
on  '  with  shoutings ; '  the  whole  world  was  looking  on. 
The  Pope  should  not  have  provoked  that  'shout ' !  It  was  20 
the  shout  of  the  awakening  of  nations.  The  quiet  German 
heart,  modest,  patient  of  much,  had  at  length  got  more 
than  it  could  bear.  Formulism,  Pagan  Popeism,*  and 
other  Falsehood  and  corrupt  Semblance  had  ruled  long 
enough :  and  here  once  more  was  a  man  found  who  durst 
tell  all  men  that  God's-world  stood  not  on  semblances  but 
on  realities;  that  life  was  a  truth,  and  not  a  lie ! 

At  bottom,  as  was  said  above,  we  are  to  consider  Luther 
as   a   Prophet    Idol-breaker;   a  bringer-back*  of   men   to 
reality.     It   is  the  function   of  great   men  and    teachers.  30 
Mahomet  said.  These  idols  of  yours  are  wood ;    you  put 

1 »  H'  another  s  W}  another's  *  H'  H=  H'  Popism 

4  H'  H»  H'  tenth  s  n«  H»  H*  bringer  back 

*  *  H'  in  the  market  place  of  Wittenberg 


■\: 


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ji.  itl 


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LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


wax  and  oil  on  them,  the  flies  stick  on  them :  they  are  not 
God,  I  tell  you,  they  are  black  wood  !  Luther  said  to  the 
Pope,  This  thing  of  yours  that  you  call  a  Pardon  of  Sins, 
it  is  a  bit  of  rag-paper  with  ink.  It  is  nothing  else ;  it, 
and  so  much  like  it,  is  nothing  else.  God  alone  can  par- 
don sins.  Popeship,  spiritual  Fatherhood  of  God's  Church, 
is  that  a  vain  semblance,  of  cloth  and  parchment  ?  It  is  an 
awful  fact.  God's  Church  is  not  a  semblance.  Heaven  and 
Hell  are  not  semblances.     I  stand  on  this,  since  you  drive 

10  me  to  it.  Standing  on  this,  I  a  poor  German  Monk  am 
stronger  than  you  all.  I  stand  solitary,  friendless,'  but  on  ' 
God's  Truth ;  you  with  your  tiaras,  triple-hats,  with  your 
treasuries  and  armories,  thunders  spiritual  and  temporal, 
stand  on  the  Devil's  Lie,  and  are  not  so  strong !  — 

The  Diet  of  Worms,  Luther's  appearance  there  on  the 
17th  of  April  1 52 1,  may  be  considered  as  the  greatest  scene 
in  Modern  European  History ;  the  point,  indeed,  from 
which  the  whole  subsequent  history  of  civilisation  ■*  takes 
its  rise.     After  multiplied  negotiations,  disputations,  it  had 

20  come  to  this.  The  young  Emperor  Charles  Fifth,  with  all 
the  Princes  of  Germany,  Papal  nuncios,  dignitaries  spiritual 
and  temporal,  are  assembled  there  :  Luther  is  to  appear  and 
answer  for  himself,  whether  he  will  recant  or  not.  The 
world's  pomp  and  power  sits  there  on  this  hand :  on  that, 
stands-up '  for  God's  Truth,  one  man,  the  ^  poor  miner  Hans 
Luther's  S  .»  Friends  had  reminded  him  of  Huss,  advised 
him  not  to  go  ;  he  would  not  be  advised.  A  large  company 
of  friends  rode-out  *  to  meet  him,  with  still  more  earnest 
warnings;  he  answered,  "Were  there  as  many  Devils  in 


1  1  H'H*  friendless,  one  man,  on 

2  H'  H»  civilization 
SH'  H=H^  stands  up 

*  ♦  H'  Hans  I^nther  the  poor  miner's  son 
s  H"  IP  ir  todeout 


THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST 


155 


Worms  as  there  are  roof-tiles,  I  would  on."  The  people,  on 
the  morrow,  as  he  went  to  the  Hall  of  the  Diet,  crowded 
the  windows  and  housetops,  some  of  them  calling  oui  to 
him,  in  solemn  words,  not  to  recant :  "  Whosoever  denieth 
me  before  men ! "  they  cried  to  him,  —  as  in  a  kind  of 
solemn  petition  and  adjuration.  Was  it  not  in  reality  our 
petition  too,  the  petition  of  the  whole  world,  lying  in  dark 
bondage  of  soul,  paralysed  under  a  black  spectral  Night- 
mare and  triple-hatted  Chimera,  calling  itself  Father  in 
God,  and  what  not :  "  Free  us ;  it  rests  with  thee ;  desert  lo 
us  not!'" 

Luther  did  not  desert  us.  His  speech,  of  two  hours, 
distinguished  itself  by  its  respectful,  wise  and  honest  tone  ; 
submissive  to  whatsoever  could  lawfully  claim  submission, 
not  submissive  to  any  more  than  that.  His  writings,  he 
said,  were  partly  his  own,  partly  derived  from  the  Word  of 
God.  As  to  what  was  his  own,  human  infirmity  entered 
into  it ;  unguarded  anger,  blindness,  many  things  doubtless 
which  it  were  a  blessing  for  him  could  he  abolish  altogether. 
But  as  to  what  stood  on  sound  truth  and  the  Word  of  God,  20 
he  could  not  recant  it.  How  could  he?  "Confute  me," 
he  concluded,  "by  proofs  of  Scripture,  or  else  by  plain  just 
arguments:  I  cannot  recant  otherwise.  For  it  is  neither 
safe  nor  prudent  to  do  aught  against  conscience.  Here 
stand  I  ;  I  can  do  no  other  :  God  assist  me !  " —  It  is,  as 
we  say,  the  greatest  moment  in  the  Modern  History  of 
Men.  English  Puritanism,  England  and  its  Parliaments, 
Americas,  and  vast  work  these  two  centuries ;  French  Revo- 
lution, Europe  and  its  work  everywhere  at  present:  the 
germ  of  it  all  lay  there :  had  Luther  in  that  moment  done  3° 
other,  it  had  all  been  otherwise  !  The  European  World  was 
asking  him  :  Am  I  to  sink  ever  lower  into  falsehood,  stagnant 
putrescence,  loathsome  accursed  death  ;  or,  with  whatever 
1  no  paragraph  in  H»  H*  H' 


•J 


l\- 


156 


LECTURES   ON  HEROES 


paroxysm,  to  cast  the  falsehoods  out  of  me,  and  be  cured 
and  live  ?  — 


Great  wars,  contentions  and  disunion  followed  out  of  this 
Reformation ;  which  last  down  to  our  day,  and  are  yet  far 
from  ended.  Great  talk  and  crimination  has  been  made 
about  these.  They  are  lamentable,  undeniable ;  but  after 
all,  what  has  Luther  or  his  cause  to  do  with  them  ?  It 
seems  strange  reasoning  to  charge  the  Reformation  with  all 
this      When  Hercules  turned  thi  purifying  river  into  King 

10  Augeas's  stables,  I  have  no  doubt  the  confusion  that  resulted 
was  considerable  all  around :  but  I  think  it  was  not  Her- 
cules's  blame ;  it  was  some  other's  blame  !  The  Reforma- 
tion might  bring  what  results  it  liked  when  it  came,  but  the 
Reformation  simply  could  not  help  coming.  To  all  Popes 
and  Popes'  advocates,  expostulating,  lamenting  and  accus- 
ing, the  answer  of  the  world  is :  Once  for  all,  your  Pope- 
hood  has  become  untrue.  No  matter  how  good  it  was,  how 
good  you  say  it  is,  we  cannot  believe  it ;  the  light  of  our 
whole  mind,  given  us  to  walk-by '  from  Heaven  above,  finds 

20  it  henceforth  a  thing  unbelievable.  We  will  not  believe  it, 
we  will  not  try  to  believe  it,  — we  dare  not !  The  thing  is 
untrue;  we  were  traitors  against  the  Giver  of  all  Truth,  if 
we  durst  pretend  to  think  it  true.  Away  with  it ;  let  what- 
soever likes  come  in  the  place  of  it :  with  it  we  can  have 
no  farther  trade!  —  Luther  and  his  Protestantism  is  not 
responsible  for  wars  ;  the  false  Simulacra  that  forced  hini  to 
protest,  they  are  responsible.  Luther  did  what  every  mar 
that  God  has  made  has  not  only  the  right,  but  lies  under 
the  sacred  duty,  to  do :  answered  a  Falsehood  when  it  ques- 

30  tioned  him,  Dost  thou  believe  me  ?  —  No  !  —  At  what  cost 
soever,  without  counting  of  costs,  this  thing  behoved  to  be 
done.     Union,   organisation  spiritual  and   material,  a  far 

1  H'  W  W  walk  by 


THE   HERO   AS  PRIEST 


157 


nobler  than  any  Popedom  or  Feudalism  in  their  truest 
days,  I  never  doubt,  is  coming  for  the  world  ;  sure  to  come. 
But  on  Fact  alone,  not  on  Semblance  and  Simulacrum,  will 
it  be  able  either  to  come,  or  to  stand  when  come.  With 
union  grounded  on  falsehood,  and  ordering  us  to  speak 
and  act  lies,  we  will  not  have  anything  to  do.  Peace  ? 
A  brutal  lethargy  is  peaceable,  the  noisome  grave  is  peace- 
able.    We  hope  for  a  living  peace,  not  a  dead  one  ! 

And  yet,  in  prizing  justly  the  indispensable  blessings  of 
the  New,  let  us  not  be  unjust  to  the  Old.  The  Old  was  lo 
true,  if  it  no  longer  is.  In  Dante's  days  it  needed  no 
sophistry,  self-blinding  or  other  dishonesty,  to  get  itself 
reckoned  true.  It  was  good  then  ;  nay  there  is  in  the  soul 
of  it  a  deathless  good.  The  cry  of  '  No  Popery  '  is  foolish 
enough  in  these  days.  The  speculation  that  Popery  is  on 
the  increase,  building  new  chapels  and  so  forth,  may  pass 
for  one  of  the  idlest  ever  started.  Very  curious:  to  count- 
up*  a  few  Popish  chapels,  listen  to  a  few  I  -  jtestant  logic- 
choppings,  —  to  much  dull-droning  drowsy  inanity  that  still 
calls  itself  Protestant,  and  say :  See,  Protestantism  is  dead;  20 
Popeism^is  more  alive  than  it,  will  be  alive  after  it!  — 
Drowsy  inanities,  not  a  few,  that  call  themselves  Protestant 
are  dead ;  but  Protestantism  has  not  died  yet,  that  I  hear 
of !  Protestantism,  if  we  will  look,  has  in  these  days  pro- 
duced its  Goethe,  its  Napoleon  ;  German  Literatu.eand  the 
French  Revolution  ;  rather  considerable  signs  of  life  !  Nay, 
at  bottom,  what  else  is  alive  hut  Protestantism  ?  The  life  of 
most  else  that  one  meets  is  a  galvanic  one  merely,  —  not  a 
pleasant,  not  a  lasting  sort  of  life ! 

Popery  can   build  new  chapels ;  welcome  to  do  so,  to  30 
all  lengths.     Popery   cannot  come  back,  any   more   than 
Paganism  can,  —  whieh  also  still  lingers  in  some  countries. 
But,  indeed,  it  is  with  these  things,  as  with  the  ebbing  of  the 

'  H'  H'  H*  count  up  2  H'  ir  IP  Popism 


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LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


sea:  you  look  at  the  waves  oscillating  hither,  thither  on 
the  beach ;  for  minutes  you  cannot  tell  how  it  is  going , 
look  in  half  an  hour  where  it  is,  —  look  in  half  a  century 
where  your  Popehood  is !  Alas,  would  there  were  no 
greater  danger  to  our  Europe  than  the  poor  old  Pope's 
revival !  Thor  may  as  soon  try  to  revive.  —  And  withal 
this  oscillation  has  a  meaning.  The  poor  old  Popehood 
will  not  die  away  entirely,  as  Thor  has  done,  for  some  time 
yet ;  nor  ought  it.     We  may  say,  the  Old  never  dies  till 

lo  this  happen.  Till  all  the  soul  of  good  that  was  in  it  have 
got  itself  transfused  into  the  practical  New.  While  a  good 
work  remains  capable  of  being  done  by  the  Romish  form ; 
or,  what  is  inclusive  of  all,  while  a  pious  life  remains  cap- 
able of  being  leu  by  it,  just  so  long,  if  we  consider,  will 
this  or  the  other  human  soul  adopt  it,  go  about  as  a  living 
witness  of  it.  So  long  it  will  obtrude  itself  on  the  eye  of 
us  who  reject  it,  till  we  in  our  practice  too  have  appro- 
priated whatsoever  of  truth  was  in  it.  Then,  but  also  not 
till  then,  it  will  have  no  charm  more  for  any  man.     It  lasts 

20  here  for  a  purpose.     Let  it  last  as  long  as  it  can.  — 


Of  Luther  I  will  add  now,  in  reference  to  all  these  wars 
and  bloodshed,  the  noticeable  fact  that  none  of  them  began 
so  long  as  he  continued  living.  The  controversy  did  not 
get  to  fighting  so  long  as  he  was  there.  To  me  it  is  proof 
of  his  greatness  in  all  senses,  this  fact.  How  seldom  do 
we  find  a  man  that  has  stirred-up'  some  vast  commotion, 
who  does  not  himself  perish,  swept-away  ^  in  it  !  Such  is 
the  usual  course  of  revolutionists.  Luther  continued,  in  a 
good  degree,  sovereign  of  this  greatest  revolution ;  all 
30  Protestants,  of  what  rank  or  function  soever,  looking  much 
to  him  for  guidance  :  and  he  held  it  peaceable,  continued 
firm  at  the  centre  of  it.     A  man  to  do  this  must  have  a 


1  Ix'  \V  H'  stirred  up 


II"  H'  IP  swept  away 


THE   III:  NO   AS   I'NlESr 


159 


kingly  faculty:  he  must  have  the  gift  to  discern  at  all  turns 
where  the  true  heart  of  the  matter  lies,  and  to  plant  him- 
self courageously  on  that,  as  a  strong  true  man,  that  other 
true  men  may  rally  round  him  there.  He  will  not  continue 
leader  of  men  otherwise.  Luther's  clear  deep  force  of 
judgment,  his  force  of  all  sorts,  of  silence,  of  tolerance  and 
moderation,  among  others,  are  very  notable  in  these  cir- 
cumstances. 

Tolerance,  I  say  ;  a  very  genuine  kind  of  tolerance :  he 
distinguishes  what  is  essential,  and  what  is  not ;  the  unes-  lo 
sential  may  go  *  very  much  as  '  it  will.  A  complaint  comes 
to  him  that  such  and  such  a  Reformed  Preacher  '  will  not 
preach  without  a  cassock.'  Well,  answers  Luther,  what 
harm  will  a  cassock  do  the  man  ?  '  Let  him  have  a  cassock 
to  preach  in ;  let  him  have  three  cassocks  if  he  find  benefit 
in  them  ! '  His  conduct  in  the  matter  of  Karlstadt's  wild 
image-breaking;  of  the  Anabaptists  ;  of  the  Peasants'  War, 
shows*  a  noble  strength,  very  different  from  spasmodic 
violence.  With  sure  prompt  insight  he  discriminates  what 
is  what :  a  strong  just  man,  he  speaks-forth "  what  is  the  20 
wise  course,  and  all  men  follow  him  in  that.  Luther's 
Written  Works  *  give  similar  testimony  of  him.  The  dialect 
of  these  speculations  is  now  grown  obsolete  for  us  ;  but  one 
still  reads  them  with  a  singular  attraction.  And  indeed  the 
mere  grammatical  diction  is  still  legible  enough  ;  Luther's 
merit  in  literary  history  is  of  the  greatest ;  his  dialect 
became  the  language  of  all  writing.  They  are  not  well 
written,  these  Four-*and-twenty  (Quartos'  of  his;  written 
hastily,  with  quite  other  than  literary  objects.  Hut  in  no 
Books  have  I  found  a  more  robust,  genuine,  I  will  say  noble  3° 
faculty  of  a  man  than  in  these.     A  rugged  honesty,  home- 

1  1  H"  W  go  as  3  H"  H=  IP  speaks  forth 

2  H'  H»  W  shews  *  H'  H-  written  works 

6  8  w}  IJ2  four-andtwenty  quartos 


m 


\m 


ill 


il: 


I-'  i|  i 


MO 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


liness,  simplicity ;  a  rugged  sterling  sense  and  strength.  He 
flashes-out '  illumination  from  him ;  his  smiting  idiomatic 
phrases  seem  to  cleave  into  the  very  secret  of  the  matter. 
Good  humour  too,  nay  tender  affection,  nobleness,  and 
depth  :  this  man  could  have  been  a  Poet  too  !  He  had  to 
work  an  Kpic  Poem,  not  write  one.  I  call  him  ?  great 
Thinker;  as  indeed  his  greatness  of  heart  already  betokens 
that. 

Richter  says  of   Luther's  words,  'his  words  are  half- 

10  battles.'  They  may  be  called  so.  '  The  essential  quality  of 
him  was,  that  he  could  fight  and  conquer ;  that  he  was  a 
right  piece  of  human  Valour.  No  more  valiant  man,  no 
mortal  heart  to  be  called  braver,  that  one  has  record  of, 
ever  lived  in  that  Teutonic  Kindred,  whose  character  is 
valour.  His  defiance  of  the  •  Devils'  in  Worms  was  not  a 
mere  boast,  as  the  like  might  be  if  now  spoken.  It  was  a 
faith  of  Luther's  that  there  were  Devils,  spiritual  denizens 
of  the  Pit,  continually  besetting  men.  Many  times,  in  his 
writings,  this  turns-up ;  and  a  most  small  sneer  has  been 

20  grounded  on  it  by  some.  In  the  room  of  the  Wartburg 
where  he  sat  translating  the  Bible,  they  still  show  ^  you  a 
black  spot  on  the  wall ;  the  strange  memorial  of  one  of 
these  conflicts.  Luther  sat  translating  one  of  the  Psalms ; 
he  was  worn-down '  with  long  labour,  with  sickness,  absti- 
nence from  food ;  there  rose  before  him  some  hideous  inde- 
finable Image,  which  he  took  for  the  Evil  One,  to  forbid  his 
work:  Luther  started-up*  with  fiend-defiance;  flung  his 
inkstand  at  the  spectre,  and  it  disappeared  '  The  spot 
still  remains  there ;  a  curious  monument  of  se  /eral  things. 

30  Any  apothecary's  apprentice  can  now  tell  us  what  we  are 
to  think  of  this  apparition,  in  a  sc  ntilic  sense:  but  the 
man's  heart  that  dare  rise  defiant,  face  to  face,  against  Hell 


»  H'  W  H»  flashes  out 
2  H'  H»  H^  shew 


«  \V  W  W  worn  down 
MI"  IP  IP  started  up 


THE   HKKO   AS  F  HI  EST 


\u\ 


itself,  can  give  no  higher  proof  of  fearlessness.  The  thing 
he  will  quail  before  exists  not  on  this  Karth  or  under  it.  — 
Fearless  enough  I  'The '  Devil  is  aware,'  writes  he  on  one 
occasion,  'that  this  does  not  proceed  out  of  fear  in  me.  I 
have  seen  and  defied  innumerable  Devils.  Duke  George,' 
of  Leipzig,  a  great  enemy  of  his,  '  Duke  George  is  not  equal 
to  one  Devil,'  —  far  short  of  a  Devil!  •  If  I  had  business 
at  Leipzig,  I  would  ride  into  Leipzig,  though  it  rained 
Duke-Georges  for  nine  days  running.'  What  a  reservoir 
of  Dukes  to  ride  into  M  —  to 

At  the  same  time,  they  err  greatly  who  imagine  that  this 
man's  courage  was  ferocity,  mere  coarse  disobedient  obsti- 
nacy and  savagery,  as  many  do.  Far  from  that.  There 
may  be  an  absence  of  fear  which  arises  from  the  absence  of 
thought  or  affection,  from  the  presence  of  hatred  and  stupid 
fury.  We  do  not  value  the  courage  of  the  tiger  highly ! 
With  Luther  it  was  far  otherwise ;  no  accusation  could  be 
more  unjust  than  this  of  mere  ferocious  violence  brought 
against  him.  A  most  gentle  heart  withal,  full  of  pity  md 
love,  as  indeed  the  truly  valiant  heart  ever  is.  The  tiger  ao 
before  a  stronger  foe  —  flies :  the  tiger  is  not  what  we  call 
valiant,  only  fierce  and  cruel.  I  know  few  things  more 
couching  than  those  soft  breathings  of  affection,  soft  as  a 
child's  or  a  mother's,  in  this  great  wild  heart  of  Luther. 
So  honest,  unadulterated  with  any  cant ;  homely,  rude  in 
their  utterance;  pure  as  water  welling  from  the  rock. 
What,  in  fact,  was  all  that  downpressed  mood  of  despair 
and  reprobation,  which  we  saw  in  his  youth,  but  the  out- 
come of  pre-eminent  thoughtful  gentleness,  affections  too 
keen  and  fine  ?     It  is  the  course  such  men  as  the  poor  Poet  30 

11  III  |i»  They  spoke  once  about  his  not  being  at  Leipzig,  as  if 
'  Duke  George  had  hindered  him,'  a  great  enemy  of  his.  It  was  not  for 
Duke  George,  answered  he:  No;  "if  I  had  business  at  Leipzig,  I 
would  go,  though  it  rained  Duke  Georges  tor  nine  days  running." 


■X-A 


i\ 


16?. 


LECTURES  OX  UEROl.S 


rrcd-up'  into 

(»!    )t  anecdotes 
II  1  t  interesting 
h.ive  inany 

■•,■»"        ,     >f 

\     1.1  little 

^   Jie  most 

^'   T[dalene^ 


Cowper  fall  into.  Luther  to  a  slight  >.»  rver  might  have 
seemed  a  timid,  weak  man  ;  modrsty,  aiitctinnate  shrinking 
tenderness  the  chief  distinction  of  him.  I  (  i  a  noble  valour 
which  is  roused  in  a  heart  like  this, 
defiance,  all  kindled  into  a  heavenly 

In  Luther's  Tahlc-Talk^  a  posthun     < 
and  sayings  collected  by  his  friends,  i 
now  of  all  the  Books  proceeding  froii  Iuim.  .' 
beautiful  unconscious  displays  of  the  in  i  i, 

10  nature  he  had.  His  behaviour  at  th  '  'I  iliix 
Daughter,  so  still,  so  great  and  loving  i'^  a'  i 
affecting  things.  lie  is  resigned  that  lis  litt.'' 
should  die,  yet  longs  inexpressibly  tha  she  ini^lu  live;  — 
follows,  in  awestruck  thought,  the  flight  of  her  liitle  soul 
through  those  unknown  realms.  ANvestruck ;  most  heart- 
felt, we  can  see;  and  sincere,  —  for  after  all  dogmatic 
creeds  and  articles,  he  feels  what  nothing  it  is  that  we 
know,  or  can  know.  His  little  Magdalene''  shall  be  with 
God,  as  God  wills ;  for  Luther  too  that  is  all ;  /»/./;«  is  all. 

2o  Once,  he  looks-out  ^  from  his  solitary  I'atmos,*  the  ("astle " 
of  Coburg,*  in  the  middle  of  the  night :  The  great  vault  of 
Immensity,  long  flights  of  clouds  sailing  through  it,  ^ 
dumb,  gaunt,  huge  :  —  who  supports  all  that  ?  "  None  ever 
saw  the  pillars  of  it;  yet  it  is  supported."  God  supports 
it.  We  must  know  that  God  is  great,  that  Gud  is  good  : 
and  trust,  where  we  cannot  see.  -  Returning  home  from 
Leipzig  once,  he  is  struck  by  the  beauty  of  the  harvest 
fields  ;  How  it  stands,  that  golden  yellow  corn,  on  its  fair 
taper  stem,  its  golden  head  bent,  all  rich  and  waving  there, 

3°  — the  meek  Earth,  at  God's  kind  bidding,  has  produced  it 
once  again  ;  the  bread  of  man  !  —  In  the  garden  at  Witten- 


iH'  IP  IP  stirred  up 
2  H"  Margaret 
*  H'  Margaret 


♦  H"  W  II'  looks  out 
«  II'  '  I'atmos' 
6  6  H>  Wartburg 


THE   IIEKO  AS  i'KIEST 


U>3 


berj;  one  cvcninjj  .it  sun^»t•l,  \  little  bird  has  |»erchetl  for  the 
night :  I  hat  little  bird,  says  Luther,  above  it  are  the  star* 
and  deep  Heaven  of  worlds ;  yet  it  has  folded  its  little 
wings;  gone  trustfu'iy  to  rest  there  as  in  its  home:  the 
Maker  f»t  it  has  given  it  too  a  home  !  —  ~  Neither  are  mirth- 
ful turns  wanting:  there  is  a  great  free  human  heart  in  this 
man.  The  common  s|)eech  of  him  has  a  rugged  nobleness, 
idiomati*.  expressive,  genuine;  gleams  here  and  there  with 
beautiful  jjoetic  tints.  One  feels  him  to  be  a  gre.it  brother 
man.  His  love  of  Music,  indei-d,  is  not  ihis,  as  it  were,  the  ic 
summary  of  all  these  affections  in  him  ?  Many  .1  wild 
unutterability  he  spoke-forth  '  {\ova  him  in  the  t'>nes  of  his 
flute.  The  Devils  ried  from  hi-  Hute,  he  says.  Death- 
deAance  on  the  one  hand,  ;xnd  such  love  of  music  on  'he 
other;  I  could  call  these  the  two  opposite  loles  of  a  great 
soul;  between  these  tw(y  all  great    hings  had  room. 

Luther's  face  is  to  me  expressi'  <_•  of  him  ;  in  Kranach's 
best  jwrtraits  I  find  the  true  Luther.  A  rude  plebeian  face  ; 
with  its  huge  crag-like  brows  and  bones,  the  emblem  of 
rugged  energy  ;  at  first,  almost  a  repulsive  face.  Net  in  20 
the  eyes  especially  ther(  a  wild  silent  sorrow  ;  an  unnam- 
able'^  melancholy,  the  clement  of  all  gentle  and  fine  affec- 
tions; giving  to  the  rest  the  true  stamp  of  nobleness. 
Laughter  w.is  in  this  Luther,  as  we  said;  but  tears  also 
were  there.  Tears  also  were  appointed  him;  tears  and 
hard  toil.  The  basis  of  his  life  was  Sadness,  Karnt  ^tness. 
In  his  latter  days,  after  all  triumphs  and  victories,  he  ex- 
presses himself  heartily  weary  of  living ;  he  considers  that 
God  alone  can  and  will  regulate  the  course  things  are  tak- 
ing, and  that  perhaps  the  Day  of  Jud.^jment  is  not  far.  .\s  30 
for  him,  he  longs  for  one  thing:  that  God  would  releav 
him  from  his  labour,  and  let  him  depart  and  be  at  rest. 
They  understand  little  of  the  man  who  cite  this  in  ^/wcredit 

1  H'  H-  W  spoke  forth  -  H'  W  unnameable 


S:,  ..'I 


!       I- 


■m 


164 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


of  him  !  —  I  will  call  this  Luther  a  true  Great  Man  ;  great 
in  intellect,  in  courage,  aifection  and  integrity ;  one  of  our 
most  lovable '  and  precious  men.  Great,  not  as  a  hewn 
obelisk;  but  as  an  Alpine  mountain,  —  so  simple,  honest, 
spontaneous,  not  setting-up  =*  to  be  great  at  all ;  there  for 
quite  another  purpose  than  being  great !  Ah  yes,  unsub- 
duable  granite,  piercing  far  and  wide  into  the  Heavens ; 
yet  in  the  clefts  of  it  fountains,  green  beautiful  valleys  with 
flowers  !  A  right  Spiritual  Hero  and  Prophet ;  once  more, 
lo  a  true  Son  of  Nature  and  Fact,  for  whom  these  centuries, 
and  many  that  are  to  come  yet,  will  be  thankful  to 
Heaven. 

The  most  interesting  phasis  which  the  Reformation  any- 
where assumes,  especially  for  us  English,  is  that  of  Puri- 
tanism.    In    Luther's  own    country,    Protestantism   soon 
dwindled    into  a  rather   barren  affair:  not  a  religion  or 
faith,  but  rather  now  a  theological  jangling  of  argument, 
the  proper  seat  of  it  not  the  heart ;  the  essence  of  it  scep- 
tical contention  :  which  indeed  has  jangled  more  and  more, 
20  down  to  Voltaireism  ^  itself,  —  through  Gustavus-Adolphus 
contentions  onward  to  French- Revolution  ones!     But   in 
our  Island  there  arose  a  Puritanism,  which  even  got  itself 
established   as  a   Presbyterian  ism    and    National    Church 
among  the  Scotch  ;  which  came  forth  as  a  real  business  of 
the  heart  ;   and  has  produced  in  the  world  very  notable 
fruit.     In  some  senses,  one  may  say  it  is  the  only  phasis  of 
Protestantism  that  ever  got  to  the  rank  of  being  a  Faith,  a 
true  heart-communication  with  Heaven,  and  of  exhibiting 
itself  in  History  as  such.     We  must  spare  a  few  words  for 
30  Knox  ;  himself  a  brave  and  remarkable  man ;  but  still  more 
important  as  Chief  Priest  and   Founder,   which  one  may 
consider  him  to  be,  of  the  Faith  that  became  Scotland's, 

>  H'  W  loveahle  -•  H»  H»  W  setting  up 

«  H'  IP  If>  Voltairism 


;  i;'' 


THE  HERO  AS  PKIEST 


165 


New    England's,   Oliver   Oomwell's.      History    will   have 
something  to  say  about  this,  for  some  time  to  come ! 

We  may  censure  Puritanism  as  we  please ;  and  no  one 
of  us,  I   suppose,  but  would  find  it  a  very  rough  defective 
thing.     But  we,  and  all  men,  may  understand  that  it  was  a 
genuine  thing  ;  for  Nature  has  adopted  it,  and  it  has  grown, 
and  grows.     I  say  sometimes,  that  all  goes  by  wager-of- 
battle  '  in  this  world  ;  that  strengt/i,  well  understood,  is  the 
measure  of  all  worth.     Give  a  thing  time  ;  if  it  can  succeed, 
it  is  a  right  thing.     Look  now  at  American  Saxondom ;  lo 
and  at  that  little  Fact  of  the  sailing  of  the  Mayflower,  two- 
hundred  *  years  ago,  from  Delft  Haven  in  Holland !     Were 
we  of  open  sense  as  the  Greeks  were,  we  had  found  a  Poem 
here ;  one  of  Nature's  own  Poems,  such  as  she  writes  in 
broad  facts  over  great  continents.     For  it  was  properly  the 
beginning  of  America:  there  were   straggling  settlers  in 
America  before,  some  material  as  of  a  body  was  there  ;  but 
the  soul  of  it  was  first  this.     These  poor  men,  driven-out  * 
of  their  own  country,  not  able  well  to  live  in  Holland,  de- 
termine on  settling  in  the  New  World.     Black  untamed  20 
forests  are  there,  and  wild  savage  creatures;  but  not  so 
cruel  as  Starchamber  hangmen.     They  thought  the  Earth 
would  yield  them  food,  if  they  tilled  honestly ;  the  ever- 
lasting heaven  would   stretch,  there  too,  overhead;  they 
should  be  left  in  peace,  to  prepare  for  Eternity  by  living 
well    in  this  world  of  Time;  worshipping   in  what  they 
thought  the  true,  not  the  idolatrous  way.     They  clubbed 
their  small  means  together;  hired  a  ship,  the  little  ship 
Mayflower,  and  made  ready  to  set  sail.* 

In  Neal's*  History  of  the  Puritans*  is  an  account  of  the  30 
ceremony  of  their  departure :  solemnity,  we  might  call  it 


»  H'  H»  H'  wager  of  battle 
«  H'  W  H*  two  hundred 
»H'  H'H' driven  out 


*  no  paragraph  in  W  H'  H* 
6  H»  H»  Neale's 

•  Neal  (London,  1755),  i.  490. 


w. 


'^  . 


166 


LECTVKKS  OX  HEROES 


rather,  for  it  was  a  real  act  of  worship.  Their  minister 
went  down  with  them  to  the  beach,  and  their  brethren 
whom  they  were  to  leave  behind;  all  joined  in  solemn 
prayer,'  That  God  would  have  pity  on  His  poor  children, 
and  go  with  them  into  that  waste  wilderness,  for  He  also 
had  made  that,  He  was  there  also  as  well  as  here.  —  Hah  ! 
These  men,  I  think,  had  r  work !  The  weak  thing,  weaker 
than  a  child,  becomes  strong  one  day,  if  it  be  a  true  thing. 
Puritanism  was  only  despicable,  laughable  then ;  but  no- 
lo body  can  manage  to  laugh  at  it  now.  Puritanism  has  got 
weapons  and  sinews  ;  it  has  fire-arms,  war-navies ;  it  has 
cunning  in  its  ten  fingers,  strength  in  its  right  arm ;  it  can 
steer  ships,  fell  forests,  remove  mountains ;  —  it  is  one  of 
the  strongest  things  under  this  sun  at  present ! 

In  the  history  of  Scotland,  too,*  I  can  find  properly  but 
one  epoch  :  we  may  say,  it  contains  nothing  of  world-inter- 
est at  all  but  this  Reformation  by  Knox.  A  poor  barren 
country,  full  of  continual  broils,  dissensions,  massacrings ; 
a  people  in  the  last  state  of  rudeness  and  destitution,  little 
20  better  perhaps  than  Ireland  at  this  day.  Hungry  fierce 
barons,  not  so  much  as  able  to  form  any  arrangement  with 
each  other  him  to  divide  what  they  fleeced  from  these  poor 
drudges ;  but  obliged,  as  the  Columbian  Republics  are  at 
this  day,  to  make  of  every  alteration  a  revolution  ;  no  way 
of  changing  a  ministry  but  by  hanging  the  old  ministers  on 
gibbets :  this  is  a  historical  spectacle  of  no  very  singular 
significance  !  '  Bravery  '  enough,  I  doubt  not ;  fierce  fight- 
ing in  abundance :  but  not  braver  or  fiercer  than  that  of 
their  old  Scandinavian  Sea-king  ancestors  ;  7ohose  exploits 
30  we  have  not  found  worth  dwelling  on !  It  is  a  country  as 
yet  without  a  soul:  nothing  developed  in  it  but  what  is 
lude,  external,  semi-animal.  And  now  at  the  Reformation, 
the  internal  life  is  kindled,  as  it  were,  under  the  ribs  of  this 
1  H'  W  (the  prayer  too  is  given)        «  H'  H»  IP  Scotland  too. 


II- 


THE  HERO  AS  J'A/EST 


167 


outward  material  death.  A  cause,  the  noblest  of  causes 
kindles  itself,  like  a  beacon  set  on  high ;  high  as  Heaven, 
yet  attainable  from  Earth ;  —  whereby  the  meanest  man 
becomes  not  a  Citizen  only,  but  a  Member  of  Christ's 
visible  Church ;  a  veritable  Hero,  if  he  prove  a  true 
man  ! 

Well ;  this  is  what  I  mean  by  a  whole  '  nation  of  heroes  ; ' 
a  be/ia'int;  nation.  There  needs  not  a  great  soul  to  make 
a  hero ;  there  needs  a  god-created  soul  which  will  be  true 
to  its  origin ;  that  will  be  a  great  soul !  The  like  has 
been  seen,  we  find.  The  like  will  be  again  seen,  under 
wider  forms  than  the  Presbyterian  :  there  can  be  no  lasting 
good  done  till  then.  —  Impossible!  say  some.  Possible.^ 
Has  it  not  bce/i,  in  this  world  as  a  practised  fact  ?  Did 
Hero-worship  fail  in  Knox's  case  ?  Or  are  we  made  of 
other  clay  now  ?  Did  the  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith 
add  some  new  property  to  the  soul  of  man  .'  God  made 
the  soul  of  man.  He  did  not  doom  any  soul  of  man  to 
live  as  a  Hypothesis  and  Hearsay,  in  a  world  filled  with 
such,  and  with  the  fatal  v. oik  and  fruit  of  such  ! 

But  to  return  :  This  that  Knox  did  for  his  Nation,  I  say, 
we  may  really  call  a  resurrection  as  from  death.  It  was 
not  a  smooth  business ;  but  it  was  welcome  surely,  and 
cheap  at  that  price,  had  it  been  far  rougher.  On  the 
whole,  cheap  at  any  price  ;  —  as  life  is.  The  jjeople  began 
to  Ihr :  they  needed  first  of  all  to  do  that,  at  what  cost  and 
costs  soever.  Scotch  Literature  and  Thought,  Scotch  In 
dustry ;  James  Watt,  David  Hume,  Walter  Scott,  Robert 
Burns:  I  find  Knox  and  the  Reformation  acting  in  the 
heart's  core  of  every  one  of  these  persons  and  phenomena  ;  30 
I  find  that  without  the  Reformation  they  would  not  have 
been.  Or  what  of  Scotland  ?  The  Puritanism  of  Scotland 
became  that  of  England,  of  New  England.  .\  tumult  in 
the  High  Church  of  Edinburgh   spread   into  a  universal 


20 


m. 


J 


t , 


168 


LECrUKEH   ON  HEROES 


battle  and  struggle  over  all  these  realms ;  —  there  came 
out,  after  fifty-years '  struggling,  what  we  all  call  the  '  Glo- 
rious Revolution,'  a  Habeas-Corptts  Act,  Free  Parliaments, 
and  much  else!  —  Alas,  is  it  not  too  true  what  we  said, 
That  many  men  in  the  van  do  always,  like  Russian  soldiers, 
march  into  the  ditch  of  Schweidnitz.^*  and  fill  it  up  with  their 
dead  bodies,  that  the  rear  may  pass-over  *  them  dry-shod, 
and  gain  the  honour  ?  How  many  earnest  rugged  Crom- 
wells,  Knoxes,   poor  Peasant  Covenanters,  wrestling,  bat- 

lo  tling  for  very  life,  in  rough  miry  places,  have  to  struggle, 
and  suffer,  and  fall,  greatly  censured,  bemired,  —  before  a 
beautiful  Revolution  of  Eighty-eight  can  step-over  *  them  in 
official  pumps  and  silk-stockings,  with  universal  three  times- 
three  ! 

It  seems  to  me  hard  measure  that  this  Scottish  man,  now 
after  three-hundred*  years,  should  have  to  plead  like  a 
culprit  before  the  world ;  intrinsically  for  having  been,  in 
such  way  as  it  was  then  possible  to  be,  the  bravest  of  all 
Scotchmen  !     Had  he  been  a  poor  Half-and-half,  he  could 

20  have  crouched  into  the  corner,  like  so  many  others ;  Scotland 
had  not  been  delivered  ;  and  Knox  had  been  without  blame. 
He  is  the  one  Scotchman  to  whom,  of  all  others,  his  coun- 
try and  the  world  owe  a  debt.  He  has  to  plead  that  Scot- 
land would  forgive  him  for  having  been  worth  to  it  any 
million  'unblamable  '*  Scotchmen  that  need  no  forgiveness! 
He  bared  his  breast  to  the  battle ;  had  to  row  in  French 
galleys,  wander  forlorn  in  exile,  in  clouds  and  storms  ;  was 
censured,  shot-at  ^  through  his  windows ;  had  a  right  sore 
fighting  life  :  if  this  world  were  his  place  of  recompense,  he 

30  had  made  but  a  bad  venture  of  it.     I  can.  ot  apologise "  for 


»  H'  W  fifty  years 

2  1I«  IP  W  Schwiednitz 

*  H'  H*  H*  pass  over 

*  H'  H«  H'  step  over 


»  H'  H*  H'  three  hundred 
«  H'  H=  unblameable 
'  H'  H»  H'  shot  at 
»  H'  H*  apologize 


THE  HERO  AS  PKIKST 


169 


Knox.  To  him  it  is  very  indifferent,  these  two-hundred- 
and-tifty '  years  or  more,  what  men  say  of  him.  But  we, 
having  got  above  all  those  details  of  his  battle,  and  living 
now  in  clearness  on  the  fruits  of  his  victory,  we,  lor  ^  our 
own  sake,  ought  to  look  through  the  rumors  and  controver- 
sies enveloping  the  man,  into  the  man  himself. 

For  one  thing,  1  will  remark  that  this  post  of  Prophet 
to  his  Nation  was  not  of  his  seeking  ;  Knox  had  lived  forty 
years  quietly  obscure,  before  he  became  conspicuous.  He 
was  the  son  of  poor  parents  ;  had  got  a  college  education*;  lo 
become  a  Priest ;  adopted  the  Reformation,  and  seemed 
well  content  to  guide  his  own  steps  by  the  light  of  it, 
nowise  unduly  intruding  it  on  others.  He  had  lived  as 
Tutor  in  gentlemen's  families  ;  preaching  when  any  body 
of  persons  wished  to  hear  his  doctrine:  resolute  he  to  walk 
by  the  truth,  and  speak  the  truth  when  called  to  do  it ; 
not  ambitious  of  more ;  not  fancying  himself  capable  of 
more.  In  this  entirely  obscure  way  he  had  reached  the 
age  of  forty;  was  with  the  small  body  of  Reformers  who 
were  standing  siege  in  St.  Andrew's  Castle,  —  when  one  20 
day  in  their  chapel,  the  Preacher  after  finishing  his  exhor- 
tation to  these  fighters  in  the  forlorn  hope,  said  suddenly. 
That  there  ought  to  be  other  speakers,  that  all  men  who 
had  a  priest's  heart  and  gift  in  them  ought  now  to  speak ; 
—  which  gifts  and  heart  one  of  their  own  number,  John 
Knox  the  name  of  him,  had :  Had  he  not  ?  said  the 
Preacher,  appealing  to  all  the  audience :  what  then  is  his 
duty  .'  The  people  answered  affirmatively  ;  it  was  a  criminal 
forsaking  of  his  post,  if  such  a  man  held  the  word  that  was 
in  him  silent.     Poor  Knox  was  obliged  to  stand-up  * ;   he  30 

1  IP  W  H'  two  hundred  and  fifty 
-  H'  IF  we  for 
■'  IP  IP  I P  college-education 
<  IP  IP  IP  stand  up 


'I 

5    *  * 


„  .r,1 


II 


170 


LECrUNES   ON  JIEKOES 


attempted  to  reply ;  he  could  say  no  word ;  —  burst  into 
a  flood  of  tears,  and  ran  out.  It  is  worth  remembering, 
that  scene.  He  was  in  grievous  trouble  for  some  days.  He 
felt  what  a  small  faculty  was  his  for  this  great  work.  He 
felt  what  a  baptism  he  was  called  to  be  baptised  ^  withal. 
He  'burst  into  tears.' 

Our  primary  characteristic  of  a  Hero,  that  he  is  sincere, 
applies  emphatically  to  Knox.  It  is  not  denied  anywhere 
that  this,  whatever  might  be  his  other  qualities  or  faults, 

lo  is  among  the  truest  of  men.  With  a  singular  instinct  he 
holds  to  the  truth  and  fact ;  the  truth  alone  is  there  for 
him,  the  rest  a  mere  shadow  and  deceptive  nonentity. 
However  feeble,  forlorn  the  reality  may  seem,  on  that  and 
that  only  can  he  take  his  stand.  In  the  Galleys  of  the 
River  Loire,  whither  Knox  and  the  others,  after  their 
Castle  of  St.  Andrew's  was  taken,  had  been  sent  as  (ialley- 
slaves,  —  some  officer  or  priest,  one  day,  presented  them 
an  Image  of  the  Virgin  Mother,  requiring  that  they,  the 
blasphemous   heretics,  should   do  it  reverence.     Mother  ? 

20  Mother  of  God }  said  Knox,  when  the  turn  came  to  him : 
This  is  no  Mother  of  God  :  this  is  '  ■xpentcd IncJd,' — a  piece 
of  wood,  I  tell  you,  with  paint  on  it  !  She  is  fitter  for 
swimming,  I  think,  than  for  being  worshipped,  added 
Knox ;  and  flung  the  thing  into  the  river.  It  was  not  very 
cheap  jesting  there  :  but  come  of  it  what  might,  this  thing 
to  Knox  was  and  must  continue  nothing  other  than  the  real 
truth;  it  was  z. pented  brcdd :  worship  it  he  would  not.*" 

He  told  his  fellow-prisoners,  in  this  darkest  time,  to  be 
of  courage  ;  the  Cause  they  had  was  the  true  one,  and  must 

30  and  would  prosper ;  the  whole  world  could  not  put  it  down. 

Reality  is  of  God's  making  ;  it  is  alone  strong.     How  many 

pented  bredds,  pretending  to  be  real,  are  fitter  to  swim  than 

to  be  worshipped  !  —  This  Knox  cannot  live  but  by  fact : 

1  II'  IP  baptized  *  no paraipaph  in  IP  IT  IP 


k  *, 


THE   HEKO   AS  PA'/EST 


\1\ 


he  clings  to  reality  as  the  shipwrecked  sailor  to  the  cliff. 
He  is  an  instance  to  us  how  a  man,  by  sincerity  itself, 
becomes  heroic  :  it  is  the  grand  gift  he  has.  We  find  in 
Knox  a  good  honest  intellectual  talent,  no  transcendent 
one;  —  a  narrow,  inconsiderable  man,  as  compared  with 
Luther :  but  in  heartfelt  instinctive  adherence  to  truth,  in 
sincerity,  as  we  say,  he  has  no  superior  ;  nay,  one  might  ask, 
What  equal  he  has?  The  heart  of  him  is  of  tie  true 
Prophet  cast.  "He  lies  there,"  said  the  Karl  of  Morton 
at  his  grave,  "who  never  feared  the  face  of  man."'  He  lo 
resembles,  more  than  any  of  the  moderns,  an  Old-Hebrew 
Prophet.  The  same  inflexibility,  intolerance,  rigid  narrow- 
looking  adherence  to  (iod's  truth,  stern  rebuke  in  the  name 
of  Cod  to  all  that  forsake  truth:  an  Old-Hebrew  Prophet 
in  the  guise  of  an  Edinburgh  Minister  of  the  Sixteenth 
Century.  We  are  to  take  him  for  that ;  not  require  him 
to  be  other. 

Knox's  conduct  to  Queen  Mary,  the  harsh  visits  he  used 
to  make  in  her  own  palace,  to  reprove  her  there,  have  been 
much  commented  upon.  Such  cruelty,  such  coarseness  20 
fills  us  with  indignation.  On  reading  the  actual  narrative 
of  the  business,  what  Knpx  said,  and  what  Knox  meant,  I 
must  say  one's  tragic  feeling  is  rather  disappointed.  They 
are  not  so  coarse,  these  speeches  ;  they  seem  to  nie  about 
as  fine  as  the  circumstances  would  permit  !  Knox  was  not 
there  to  do  the  courtier;  he  came  on  another  errand. 
Whoever,  reading  these  colloquies  of  his  with  the  (Jueen, 
thinks  they  are  vulgar  insolences  of  a  plebeian  jiriest  to  a 
delicate  high  lady,  mistakes  the  purport  and  essence  of 
them  altogether.  It  was  unfortunately  not  possible  to  be  30 
polite  with  the  Queen  of  Scotland,  unless  one  proved  untrue 
to  the  nation  and  Cause  of  Scotland.  A  man  who  did  not 
wish  to  see  the  land  of  his  birth  made  a  hunting-field  for 
intriguing  ambitious  (kiises,  and  the  Cause  of  (Jod  trampled 


I 


:.j         I 

..I    •: 


■I! 


172 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


underfoot '  of  Falsehoods,  Formulas  and  the  Devil's  Cause, 
had  no  method  of  making  himself  agreeable  !  "  Better  that 
women  weep,"  said  Morton,  "than  that  bearded  men  be 
forced  to  weep."  Knox  was  the  constitutional  opposition- 
party  in  Scotland  :  the  Nobles  of  the  country,  called  by 
their  station  to  take  that  post,  were  not  found  in  it ;  Knox 
had  to  go,  or  no  one.  The  hapless  Queen  ;  —  but  the  still 
more  hapless  Country,  if  she  were  made  happy !  Mary 
herself   was   not   without   sharpness   enough,    among   her 

10  other  qualities :  "Who  are  you,"  said  she  once,  "that  pre- 
sume to  school  the  nobles  and  sovereign  of  this  realm  ? " 
—  "  Madam,  a  subject  born  within  the  same,"  answered  he. 
Reasonably  answered !  If  the  'subject '  have  truth  to  speak, 
it  is  not  the  'subject's '  footing  that  will  fail  him  here.  — 

We  blame  Knox  for  his  intolerance.  Well,  surely  it  is 
good  that  each  of  us  be  as  tolerant  as  possible.  Yet,  at 
bottom,  after  all  the  talk  there  is  and  has  been  about  it, 
what  is  tolerance  ?  Tolerance  has  to  tolerate  the  ////essen- 
tial ;  and  to  see  well  what  that  is.     Tolerance  has  to  be 

-'3  noble,  measured,  just  in  its  very  wrath,  when  it  can  toler- 
ate no  longer.  But,  on  the  whole,  we  are  not  altogether 
here  to  tolerate !  We  *  are  here  to  resist,  to  control  and 
vanquish  withal."  We  do  not  'tolerate,'"  Falsehoods,*  Thiev- 
eries, Iniquities,*  when  they  fasten  on  us ;  we  say  to  them, 
Thou  art  false,  thou  "'  art  not  tolerable  * !  We  are  here  to 
extinguish*  Falsehoods,  and'  put  an  end  to  them,'  in  some 
wise  way !  I  will  not  quarrel  so  much  with  the  way  ;  the 
doing  of  the  thing  is  our  great  concern.  In  this  sense 
Knox  was,  full  surely,  intolerant. 

30       A  man  sent  to  row  in  French  Galleys,  and  suchlike,"  for 


1  ir  IP  H-'  underfoot 

^"^  not  in  ir 

«  IP  tolerate 

**  IP  Falsehoods,  Iniquities 


I!'  and  unjust 
"  IP  extiHi^uish 
'  "^  not  in  IP 
8  IP  IP  IP  such  like 


THE  HERO  AS  PKIEST 


173 


teaching  the  truth  in  his  own  land,  cannot  always  he  in 
the  mildest  hiiniour!  I  am  not  prepared  to  say  that  Knox 
had  a  soft  temper ;  ncr  do  I  know  that  lie  had  what  we 
call  an  ill  temper.  An  ill  nature  he  decidedly  had  not. 
Kind  honest  affections  dwelt  in  the  much-enduring,  hard- 
worn,  ever-battling  man.  That  he  could  rebuke  Queens, 
and  had  such  weight  among  those  proud  turbulent  Nobles, 
proud  enough  whatever  else  they  were  ;  and  could  maintain 
to  the  end  a  kind  of  virtual  Presidency  and  .Sovereignty  in 
that  wild  realm,  he  who  was  only  'a  subject  born  within  lo 
the  same : '  this  of  itself  will  prove  to  us  that  he  was  found, 
close  at  hand,  to  be  no  mean  acrid  man ;  but  at  heart  a 
healthful,  strong,  sagacious  man.  Such  alone  can  bear 
rule  in  that  kind.  They  blame  him  for  puUing-down ' 
cathedrals,  and  so  forth,  as  if  he  were  a  seditious  rioting 
demagogue :  precisely  the  reverse  is  seen  to  be  the  fact,  in 
regard  to  cathedrals  and  the  rest  of  it,  if  we  examine ! 
Knox  wanted  no  pulling-down  '■'of  stone  edifices  ;  he  wanted 
leprosy  and  darkness  to  be  thrown  out  of  the  lives  of  men. 
Tumult  was  not  his  element;  it  was  the  tragic  feature  of  ::o 
his  life  that  he  was  forced  to  dwell  so  much  in  that.  Kvery 
such  man  is  the  born  enemy  of  Disorder  ;  hates  to  be  in  it : 
but  what  then  ?  Smooth  Falsehood  is  not  Order;  it  is  the 
general  sumtotal  of  /-^/.forder.  Order  is  7/7////,  each 
thing  standing  on  the  basis  that  belongs  to  it:  Order  and 
Falsehood  cannot  subsist  together. 

Withal,  unexpectedly  enough,  this  Knox  has  a  vein  of 
drollery  in  him  ;  which  I  like  much,  in  combination  with 
his  other  qualities.  He  has  a  true  eye  for  the  ridiculous. 
H  fJistory,,  with  its  rough  earnestness,  is  curiously  enliv-  3° 
enc  with  this.  When  the  two  Prelates,  entering  (Ilasgow 
Cathedral,  quarrel  about  precedence ;  march  rapidly  up, 
take    to    hustling   one    another,    twitching    one    another's 

1  II'  II'  H'  pulling  down  ^  h'  H«  H^  pulling  dovm 


1^' 


W 


174 


LECTUKES  OX  HEkOES 


rochets,  and  at  last  flourishing  their  crosiers  like  quarter 
staves,  it  is  a  great  sight  for  him  everyway  ' !  Not  mockery, 
scorn,  bitterness  alone  ;  though  there  is  enough  of  that  too. 
But  a  true,  loving,  illuminating  laugh  mounts-up  ^  over  the 
earnest  visage ;  not  a  loud  laugh  ;  you  would  say,  a  lau<4h 
in  the  eyes  most  of  all.  An  honest-hearted,''  brotherly  man  ; 
brother  to  the  high,  brother  also  to  the  low  ;  sincere  in  his 
sympathy  with  both.  He  had  his  pipe  of  liourdeaux  too, 
we  find,  in  that  old  Edinburgh  house  of  his  ;  a  cheery  social 

lo  man,  with  faces  that  loved  him !  They  go  far  wrong  who 
think  this  Knox  was  a  gloomy,  spasmodic,  shrieking  fanatic. 
Not  at  all :  he  is  one  of  the  solidcst  of  men.  I'ractical. 
cautious-hopeful,  patient ;  a  most  shrewd,  observing,  quietly 
discerning  man.  In  fact,  he  has  very  much  the  type  of 
character  we  assign  to  the  Scotch  at  present :  a  certain 
sardonic  taciturnity  is  in  him  ;  insight  enough ;  and  a 
stouter  heart  than  he  himself  knows  of.  He  has  the  power 
of  holding  his  peace  over  many  things  which  do  not  vitally 
concern  him,  —  "They  ?  what  are  they?"     Hut  the  thinj,' 

20  which  does  vitally  concern  him,  that  thing  he  will  speak 
of;  and  in  a  tone  the  whole  world  shall  be  made  lo  hear; 
all  the  more  emphatic  for  his  lonj^  silence. 
.  This  Prophet  of  the  Scotch  is  to  me  no  hateful  man  !  — 
He  had  a  sore  tight  of  an  existence:  wrestling  with  l'oi)es 
and  Principalities  ;  in  defeat,  contention,  life-long  strugjjic  ; 
rowing  as  a  galley-slave,  wandering  as  an  exile.  A  son- 
fight  :  but  he  won  it.  "  Have  you  hope  ?  "  they  asked  him 
in  his  last  moment,  when  he  could  no  longer  speak.  He 
lifted  his  finger,  'pointed  upwards  with  his  finger,'  and  so 

30  died.  Honour  to  him*!  His  works  have  not  died.  The 
letter  of  his  work  dies,  as  of  all  men's ;  but  the  spirit  of  it 
never. 


•  11'  W  W  every  way 
a  H"  H'  IP  mounts  up 


f  II'  II»  IPhonesthearted 
«  H'  W  IP  him. 


I  HE   Ui:.kO  AS  FRIES  T 


17"! 


One  word  more  as  to  the  letter  of  Knf)x's  work.  The 
unforgivable '  ottence  in  him  is,  that  he  wished  to  set-up  ^ 
Priests  over  the  head  of  Kings.  In  other  words,  he  strove 
to  make  the  (iovernment  of  Scotland  a  Tluvcracy.  This 
indeed  is  properly  the  sum  of  his  offences,  the  essential 
sin;  for  which  what  pardon  can  there  be?  It  is  most 
true,  he  did,  at  bottom,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  mean 
a  Theocracy,  or  (iovernment  of  (lod.  He  did  niean  that 
Kings  and  Prime  Ministers,  and  all  manner  of  persons,  in 
public  or  private,  diplomatising  or  whatever  else  they  might  lo 
be  doing,  should  walk  according  to  the  (jospel  of  Christ, 
and  understand  that  this  was  their  Law,  su|)nme  over  all 
laws.  He  hoped  once  to  see  such  a  thing  realised ;  and 
the  Petition,  Thy  Kingdotn  comcy  no  longer  an  empty  word. 
He  was  sore  grieved  when  he  saw  greedy  worldly  Barons 
clutch  hold  of  the  ( 'hurch's  property  ;  when  he  expostulated 
that  it  was  not  secular  property,  that  it  was  spiritual  prop- 
erty, and  should  be  turned  to  ////(•  churchly  uses,  education, 
schools,  worship  ;  -and  the  Regent  Murray  had  to  answer, 
with  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders,  "It  is  a  devout  imagina-  20 
tion  !  "  This  was  Knox's  scheme  of  right  and  truth  ;  this 
he  zealously  endeavoured  after,  to  realise  it.  If  we  think 
his  scheme  of  truth  was  too  narrow,  was  not  true,  we  may 
rejoice  that  he  could  not  realise  it ;  that  it  remained  after 
two  centuries  of  effort,  unrealisable,  and  is  a  'devout  imagi- 
nation '  still.  But  how  shall  we  blame  /lim  for  struggling 
to  realise  it  ?  Theocracy,  Government  of  (lod,  is  precisely 
the  thing  to  be  struggled  for !  All  Prophets,  zealous  Priests, 
are  there  for  that  purpose.  Hildebrand  wished  a  Theocracy  ; 
(.Tomwell  wished  it,  fought  for  it;  Mahomet  attained  it.  3° 
Nay,  is  it  not  what  all  zealous  men,  whether  called  Priests, 
Prophets,  or  whatsoever  else  called,  do  essentially  wish,  and 
must  wish  ?     That  right  and  truth,  or  (lod's  Law,  reign 

»  H'  11^  unforgiveable  »  IP  IP  IP  set  up 


#  ' 


176 


LECTVA'KS  ON  nhKOHS 


supreme  among  men,  this  is  the  Heavenly  Ideal  (well  namt-cl 
in  Knox's  time,  and  namable  '  in  all  times,  a  revealed  *  Will 
of  Ood')  towards  which  the  Reformer  will  insist  that  all 
be  more  and  more  approximated.  VAIl  true  Reformers,  as 
I  said,  are  by  the  nature  of  them  Priests,  and  strive  for 
a  Theocracy. 

How  far  such  Ideals  can  ever  be  introduced  into  Prac- 
tice, and  at  what  point  our  impatience  with  their  non 
introduction  ought  to  begin,  is  always  a  question.  I  think 
10  we  may  say  safely,  Let  them  introduce  themselves  as  far  as 
they  can  contrive  to  do  it  !  If  they  are  the  true  faith  of 
men,  all  men  ought  to  be  more  or  less  impatient  always 
where  they  are  not  found  introduced.  There  will  never  be 
wanting  Regent-Murrays  enough  to  shrug  their  shoulders, 
and  say,  "  A  devout  imagination  !  "  We  will  praise  the  Hero- 
priest  rather,  who  does  what  is  in  him  to  bring  them  in  ; 
and  wears-out,*  in  toil,  calumny,  contradiction,  a  noble  life, 
to  make  a  God's  Kingdom  of  this  Karth.  The  Karth  will 
not  become  too  godlike ! 


»  H«  H»  nameable 


»H'  H*  HI  wears  out 


LKCTIRK   V 


,     :^ 


THE   HEKO   AS   MAN    OK    I.KTTl.Ks. 


lOIIV^ON,   IKirsSKAf,  IHIRNS 


[Tuenday,  19th  May  1S40.]  • 

Hkr<m;()Ds,  Prophets,  I'oets,  Priests  are  forms  of  Hero- 
ism that  belong  to  the  old  ajjes,  make  tlieir  app<;ai,inct 
in  the  remotest  times;  some  of  them  ha\  ceased  t(.  Ix 
jjossible  long  since,  and  cannot  any  more  show  -  them.selve^ 
in  this  world.  The  Hero  as  Man  c/ /.if/,-rs,  ajjain,  of  which 
class  we  are  to  s|jeak  today,  is  altogi  tiier  a  product  of  thehc 
new  ages;  and  so  long  as  the  wondrous  art  of  If'ritin;,^,  or 
of  Ready-writing  which  we  call  I'nntni.^,  subsists,  he  may 
i)e  expected  to  continue,  as  one  of  the  main  forms  of 
Heroism  for  all  future  ages.  He  is,  in  various  respects,  a  10 
very  singular  phenomenon. 

He  is  new,  I  say;  he  has  hardly  lasted  above  a  century 
in  the  world  yet.  Never,  till  about  a  hundred  years  ago, 
was  there  seen  any  figure  of  a  (Ireat  Soul  living  apart  in 
that  anomalous  manner  ;  endeavouring  to  speak-forth  the 
inspiration  that  was  in  him  by  i'rinted  liooks,  and  find 
place  and  subsistence  by  what  the  world  would  i)lea.se  to 
give  him  for  doing  that.  Much  had  been  sold  and  bought, 
and  left  to  make  its  own  bargain  in  the  marketplace;  but 
the  inspired  wisdom  of  a  Heroic  Soul  never  till  then,  in  ;o 
that  naked  manner.  He,  with  his  copy-rights  and  copy- 
wrongs,  in  his  squalid  garret,  in  his  rusty  coat ;  ruling  (for 

>  H*  W  IP  date  abme  title.  -  M'  IP  IP  shew 

»H"  IP  IP  speak  forth 
«77 


,4  ,, 


% 


II 


178 


LECTURES  OA    I/EKOES 


this  is  what  he  does),  from  his  grave,  after  death,  whole 
nations  and  generations  who  would,  or  would  not,  give  him 
bread  while  living,  —  is  a  rather  curious  spectacle !  Few 
shapes  of  Heroism  can  be  more  unexpected. 

Alas,  the  Hero  from  of  old  has  had  to  cramp  himself  into 
strange  shapes  :  the  world  knows  not  well  at  any  time  what 
to  do  with  him,  so  foreign  is  his  aspect  in  the  world!  It 
seemed  absurd  to  us,  that  men,  in  their  rude  admiration, 
should  take  some  wise  great  Odin  for  a  god,  and  worship 

10  him  as  such ;  some  wise  great  Mahomet  for  one  god- 
inspired,  and  religiously  follow  his  Law  for  twelve  centu- 
ries: but  that  a  wise  great  Johnson,  a  IJurns,  a  Rousseau, 
should  be  taken  for  some  idle  nondescript,  extant  in  the 
world  to  amuse  idleness,  and  have  a  few  coins  and  ap- 
plauses thrown  him,  that  he  might  live  thereby ;  this  per- 
haps, as  before  hinted,  will  one  day  seem  a  still  absurder 
phasis  of  things !  —  Meanwhile,  since  it  is  the  spiritual 
always  that  determines  the  material,  this  same  Man-of- 
Letters   Hero   must  be   regarded   as  our    most    important 

20  modern  person.  He,  such  as  he  may  be,  is  the  soul  of  ail. 
What  he  teaches,  the  whole  world  will  do  and  make.  The 
world's  manner  of  dealing  with  him  is  the  most  signiticanl 
feature  of  the  world's  general  position.  Looking  well  at 
his  life,  we  may  get  a  glance,  as  deep  as  is  readily  possible 
for  us,  into  the  life  of  those  singular  centuries  which  have 
produced  him,  in  which  we  ourselves  live  and  work. 

There  are  genuine  Men  of  Letters,  and  not  genuine  ;  as 
in  every  kind  there  is  a  genuine  and  a  sjuirious.  If  lli >i< 
be  taken  to  mean  genuine,  then  I  say  tlie  Hero  as  Man  ot 

30  Letters  will  be  found  discharging  a  function  for  us  whiili 
is  ever  honourable,  ever  the  highest:  and  was  once  well 
known  to  be  the  highest.  He  is  uttering-forth,'  in  such 
way  as  he  has,  the  inspired  soul  of  him  ;  all  that  a  man,  ii; 

>  H'  II-  11'  ullcring  forth 


THE   HERO   AS  MAX  OF  LETTERS 


17'J 


any  case,  can  do.  I  ^tl^  inspired ;  for  what  we  call  'origi- 
nality,' 'sincerity,'  'genius,'  the  heroic  quality  we  have  no 
good  name  for,  signifies  that.  The  Hero  is  he  who  lives 
in  the  inward  sphere  of  things,  in  the  True,  Divine  and 
Kternal,  which  exists  always,  unseen  to  most,  under  the 
Temporary,  Trivial :  his  being  is  in  that ;  he  declares  that 
abroad,  by  act  or  speech  as  it  may  be,  in  declaring  himself 
abro.ad.  His  life,  as  we  said  before,  is  a  piece  of  the  ever- 
lasting heart  of  Nature  herself:  all  men's  life  is,  -but  the 
weak  many  know'  not  the  fact,  and  are  untrue  to  it,'  in  lo 
most  times ;  the  strong  few  are  strong,  heroic,  perennial, 
because  it  cannot  be  hidden  from  them,  'ihe  Man  of  Let- 
ters, like  every  Hero,  is  there  to  proclaim  this  in  such  sort 
as  he  can.  Intrinsically  it  is  the  same  function  which  the 
old  generations  named  a  man  Prophet,  I'riest,  Divinity  for 
doing;  which  all  manner  of  Heroes,  by  speech  or  by  act, 
are  sent  into  the  world  to  do. 

Fichte  the  (lerman  I'hilosopher  delivered,  some  forty 
years  ago  at  Krlangen,-  a  highly  remarkable  Course  of 
Lectures  on  this  subject:  *■  Leber  das  Wcsen  des  (,e/ehrteti,  20 
On  the  Nature  of  the  Literary  Man.'  Lichte,  in  conform- 
ity with  the  Transcendental  Philosophy,  of  which  he  was 
a  distinguished  teacher,  declares  first :  i'hat  all  things 
which  we  see  or  work  with  in  this  Karth,  especially  we 
ourselves  and  all  persons,  are  as  a  kind  of  vesture  or  sensu- 
ous Appearance:  that  under  all  there  lies,  as  the  essence 
of  them,  what  he  calls  the  ♦  Divine  Idea  of  the  World  ; '  this 
is  the  Reality  which  'lies  at  the  l)ottom  of  all  Appearance.' 
To  the  mass  of  men  no  such  Divine  Idea  is  recognisable  in 
the  world  ;  they  live  merely,  says  Fichte,  among  the  sujier-  30 
ticiaiities,  practicalities  and  shows'  of  the  world,  not 
dreaming  that  there  is  anything  divine  under  them.      But 

•  1  II'  know  it  not    H^  W  know  not  llie  fact,  and  arc  untrue  to  it 
-il'll-Juna  »  II' HMP  shews 


.t  '■ 


I    : 
'•.1 


!*  ^i 


180 


I.ECTUNES  ON  IfKKOKS 


the  Man  of  Letters  is  sent  hither  specially  that  he  may 
discern  for  himself,  and  make  manifest  to  us,  this  same 
Divine  Idea :  in  every  new  generation  it  will  manifest  itself 
in  a  new  dialect ;  and  he  is  there  for  the  purpose  of  doinj; 
ihat.  Such  is  Fichte's  phraseology;  with  which  we  need 
not  quarrel.  It  is  his  way  of  naming  what  I  here,  by  other 
words,  am  striving  imperfectly  to  name  ;  what  there  is  at 
present  no  name  for  :  The  unspeakable  Divine  Significance, 
full  of  splendour,   of  wonder  and  terror,  that  lies  in  the 

10  being  of  every  man,  of  every  thing,  —  the  Presence  of  the 
God  who  made  every  man  and  thing.  Mahomet  taught  this 
in  his  dialect ;  Odin  in  his  :  it  is  the  thing  which  all  think- 
ing hearts,  in  one  dialect  or  another,  are  here  to  teach.' 

>  Fichte  calls  the  Man  of  Letters,  therefore,  a  Prophet,  or 
as  he  prefers  to  phrase  it,  a  Priest,  continually  unfoldini; 
the  Godlike  to  men  :  Men  of  Letters  are  a  perpetual  Priest- 
hood, from  age  to  age,  teaching  all  men  that  a  Ciod  is  still 
present  in  their  life;  that  all  'Appearance,'  whatsoever  we 
see  in  the  world,  is  but  as  a  vesture  for  the  '  Divine  Idea  of 

20  the  World,'  for  'that  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  Appear- 
ance.' In  the  true  Literary  Man  there  is  thus  ever, 
acknowledged  or  not  by  the  world,  a  sacredness :  he  is  the 
light  of  the  world;  the  world's  Priest;  —  guiding  it,  like  ;i 
sacred  Pillar  of  Kire,  in  its  dark  )Mlgrimage  through  tiie 
waste  of  Time.  Fichte  discrin^inates  with  sharp  zeal  tlie 
true  Literary  Man,  what  we  here  call  the  Ifiio  as  Man  of 
Letters,  from  multitudes  of  false  unheroic.  Whoever  lives 
not  wholly  in  this  Divine  Idea,  or  living  partially  in  it. 
struggles  not,  as  for  the  one  good,  to  live  wholly  in  it,     -he 

30  is,  let  him  live  where  else  he  like,  in  what  pomps  and  pros 
perities  he  like,  no  Literary  Man  ;  he  is,  says  Fichte,  a 
'Bungler,  Stumper.''  Or  at  best,  if  he  belong  to  the  prosaii 
provinces,  he  may  be  a  '  Hodman  ; '  Fichte  even  calls  him 

^no panis^raf^h  in  II'  1 1-'  II^ 


TIIK   ItERO   AS  MAX   OF  LETTERS 


181 


4 


elsewhere  a  *  Nonentity,'  and  has  in  short  no  mercy  for 
him,  no  wish  that  he  should  continue  happy  among  us ! 
This  is  Fichte's  notion  of  the  Man  of  Letters.  It  means, 
in  its  own  form,  precisely  what  we  here  mean. 

In  this  point  of  view,  I  consider  that,  for  the  last  hun- 
dred years,  by  far  the  notablest  of  all  Literary  Men  is 
Fichte's  countryman,  Goethe.  To  that  man  too,  in  a 
strange  way,  there  was  given  what  %ve  may  call  a  life  in  the 
Divine  Idea  of  the  World;  vision  of  the  inward  divine 
mystery  :  and  strangely,  out  of  his  Books,  the  world  rises  lo 
imaged  once  more  as  godlike,  the  workmanship  and  temple 
of  a  (lod.  Illuminated  all,  not  in  fierce  impure  tire-splen- 
dour as  of  Mahomet,  but  in  mild  celestial  radiance;  — 
really  a  Prophecy  in  these  most  unprophetic  times;  to  my 
mind,  by  far  the  greatest,  though  one  of  the  quietest, 
among  all  the  great  things  that  have  come  to  pass  in  them. 
Our  chosen  specimen  of  the  Hero  as  Literary  Man  would 
be  this  Goethe.  And  it  were  a  very  pleasant  plan  for  me 
here  to  discourse  of  his  heroism  :  for  I  consider  him  to  be 
a  true  Hero ;  heroic  in  what  he  said  and  did,  and  perhaps  20 
still  more  in  what  he  did  not  say  and  did  not  do ;  to  me  a 
noble  spectacle :  a  great  heroic  ancient  man,  speaking  and 
keeping  silence  as  an  ancient  Hero,  in  the  guise  of  a  most 
modern,  high-bred,  high-cultivated  Man  of  Letters  !  We 
have  had  no  such  spectacle ;  no  man  capable  of  affording 
such,  for  the  last  hundred-and-fifty '  years.^ 

But  at  present,  such  is  the  general  state  of  knowledge 
about  Goethe,  it  were  worse  than  useless  to  attempt  speak- 
ing of  him  in  this  case.  Speak  as  I  might,  Goethe,  to  the 
great  maj  )rity  of  you,  would  remain  problematic,  vague ;  30 
no  impression  but  a  false  one  could  be  realised.  Him  we 
must  leave  to  future  times.  Johnson,  K'.irns,  Rousseau, 
three  great  figures  from  a  prior  time,  from  a  far  inferior 

'1!'  11-  IP  liiiiulred  ami  fifty  "- no  paragraph  in  II'  II-  II' 


i    ' 


:  -l 


n 


"l! 


fir 


182 


LECTURES  OX  HEROES 


State  of  circumstances,  will  suit  us  licltcr  here.  Three  men 
of  the  Eighteenth  Century ;  the  conditions  of  their  life  far 
more  resemble  what  those  of  ours  still  are  in  Kngland,  than 
what  (Joethe's  in  (lermany  were.  Alas,  these  men  did  not 
conquer  like  him;  they  fought  bravely,  and  fell.  They 
were  not  heroic  bringers  of  the  light,  but  heroic  seekers  of 
it.  They  lived  under  galling  conditions;  struggling  as 
under  mountains  of  impediment,  and  could  not  unfold 
themselves  into  clearness,  or '  victorious  interpretation  of 
10  that  'Divine  Idea.'  It  is  rather  the  Tombs  of  three  Liter- 
ary Heroes  that  I  have  to  show'-  you.  There'*  are  the 
monumental  heaps,  under  which  three  spiritual  giants  lie 
buried.  Very  mournful,  but  also  great  and  full  of  interest 
for  us.     We  will  linger  by  them  for  a  while. 

Complaint  is  often  made,  in  these  times,  of  what  we 
call  the  disorganised  condition  of  society  :  how  ill  many 
arranged  forces  of  society  fulfil  their  work  ;  how  many 
powerful  forces  are  seen  working  in  a  wasteful,  cliaotic, 
altogether  unarranged  manner,      it  is  too  just  a  complaint, 

20  as  we  all  know.     But  perhaps  if  we  look  at  this  of   Hook-, 
and  the  Writers  of  Hooks,  we  shall  find  here,  as  it  were. 
the  summary   of    all   other  disorganisation*;       a    sort    ol 
heart,  from  which,*  and  to  whicli,'  all  other  confusion  circu 
lates  in  the  world  I     Considering  what   Hook-writers  do  in 
the  world,  and   what  the  world  does  with    Hook-writers,  ! 
should  say.  It  is  the  most  anom:ilous  thing  the  world    u 
present  has  to  show."       We  should  get  into  a  sea  far  Ik 
yond  sounding,  did  we  attempt  to  give  account  of  tlii> 
but  we  must  glance  at  it  for  the  sake  of  our  subject.       I'lii 

3°  worst  element   in   the  life  of  these  three   Literary    Heroes 


'  not  in  II'  11= 
«n'  IP  IP  shew 
"IP  These 


■•  IP  (hsi)r>;ani/ation 

■'■'••  IP  II-  IP  \viii(h  iiiul  to  wliiili 

Ml'  IP  ll^shdW 


TIJE   JIEKO  AS  MAX  Of-   l.ETTJ-.NS 


183 


was,  that  they  found  their  business  and  position  such  a 
chaos.  On  the  beaten  road  there  is  tolerable  travellinjj; 
but  it  is  sore  work,  and  many  have  to  perish,  fashioning  a 
path  through  the  impassable  ! 

Our  pious  I'athers,  feeling  well  what  importance  lay  in 
the  speaking  of  man  to  men,  founded  churches,  made  en 
dowments,  regulations;  everywhere  in  thr  civilised  world 
there  is  a  I'ulpit,  environed  with  all  manner  of  complex 
dignified  appurtenances  and  furtherances,  tha  therefrom  a 
man  with  the  tongue  may,  to  best  advantage,  address  his  lo 
fellow-men.  They  felt  that  this  was  the  most  important 
thing;  that  without  this  there  was  no  good  thing.  It  is  a 
right  pious  work,  that  of  theirs ;  beautiful  to  behold  !  Hut 
now  with  the  art  of  Writing,  with  the  art  of  Printing,  a 
total  change  has  come  over  that  business.  The  Writer  of 
a  Hook,  is  not  he  a  J'reacher  preaching  not  to  this  parish 
or  that,  on  this  day  or  that,  but  to  all  men  in  all  times  and 
places  ?  Surely  it  is  of  the  last  importance  that  In-  do  his 
work  right,  whoever  do  it  wrong;  that  the  nv  report  not 
falsely,  for  then  all  the  other  members  are  astray  !  Well ;  20 
how  he  may  do  his  work,  whether  he  do  it  right  or  wrong, 
or  do  it  at  all,  is  a  point  whicii  no  man  in  the  world  has 
taken  the  pains  to  think  of.  lo  a  certain  shopkeei^T,  try- 
ing to  get  some  money  for  his  Ijooks,  if  lucky,  he  is  of  s(mie 
importance  ;  to  no  other  man  of  any.  Whence  he  came, 
whither  he  is  bound,  by  what  ways  he  arrived,  by  what  he 
might  be  furthered  on  his  course,  no  one  asks.  He  is  an 
accident  in  society.  He  wanders  like  a  wild  Ishmaelite,  in 
a  world  of  which  he  is  as  the  spiritual  light,  either  the 
guidance  or  the  misguidance  ! 

Certainly  the  .Art  of  Writing  is  the  most  miraculous  of  all 
tilings  man  has  devised.  Odin's  Riin,s  were  the  first  form 
of  the  work  of  a  Hero  ;  Books,  written  words,  .ire  still  mi- 
raculous Riiius,  the  latest  form  !      In  Hooks  lies  the  soul  of 


30 


^ 

:f 

\  ? 

IM 


l.l:CTri:]:S   ox  IIKKOES 


the  whole  Past   Time 


the  articulate  audible  voice  of  the 


Past,  when  the  body  and  material  substance  of  it  has  alto- 
gether vanished  like  a  dream.     Mighty  Heets  and  armies, 
harbours    and    arsenals,    vast    cities,    high-domed,   many- 
engined,  —  they    are    precious,    great:    but  what    do    they 
become  ?     Agamemnon,  the  many  Agamemnons,  Pericleses, 
and  their  Greece;   ail   is  gone  now  to  some  ruined  frag- 
ments, dumb  mournful  wrecks  and  blocks :  but  the  Books 
of   Greece!     There    Greece,  to    every    thinker,    still    very 
10  literally  lives  ;  can  be  called-up'  again  into  life.     No  magic 
Rune  is  stranger  than  a  Hook.     All  that  Mankind  has  done, 
thought,  gained  or  been  :   it  is  lying  as  in  magic  preserva- 
tion in  the  pages  of  Hooks.      They   are  tiie  chosen  posses- 
sion of  men. 

Do  not   Hooks  still  accomplish  ?iur<ui,s,  as  h'uncs  were 
fabled  to  do  ?      They  persuade  men.      Not  the  wretchedest 
circulating-library  novel,  which  foolish  girls  thumb  and  con 
in  remote  villages,  but  will  help  to  regulate  the  actual  prac- 
tical weddings  and  households  of  those  foolish  girls.     So 
20  «(elia'  felt,  so  'ClifTord'  acted:  the  foolish  Theorem  of 
Life,  stamped   into  those   young   brains,  comes  out  as  a 
solid  Practice  one  day.      Consider  whether  any  /\uii<-  in  the 
wildest  imagination  of  Myth  >logist  ever  did  such  wonders 
as,   on    the    actual    tii  m    Karth,   some   Hooks   have   done ! 
What  built   St.   Paul's  Cathedral?     Look  at  the  heart  of 
the  matter,  it  was  that  divine   Hebrew   Hook,^  —  the  word 
partly  of  the  man  Moses,  an  outlaw  tending  his  Midianitish 
herds,  four-thousand  '  years    ago,    in    the    wildernesses   of 
Sinai!      It  is  the  strangest  of  things,  yet  nothing   is  truer. 
30  With  the  art  of  Writing,  of  which  Printing  is  a  simple,  an 
inevitable   and   comparatively    insignificant    rorollary,   the 
true  reign  of  miracles  for  mankind  commenced,      it  related, 

1  M'  11=^  II' called  u])  -  II'  W  \V  llKHKiw  I'.ook 

■'  11"  H-  II'  four  thousand 


I  ■! 


THE   HERO   AS  AfAX  OF  LETTEKS 


18S 


with  a  wondrous  new  contifjuity  and  iK'r|)etiiaI  closeness, 
the  Past  and  Distant  with  tiic  Tresent  in  time  and  place; 
all  times  and  all  places  with  this  our  actual  Here  and  Now. 
All  things  were  altered  for  men  ;  all  modes  of  important 
work  of  men:  teachinjj,  preaching;,  },'ovcrnin{,',  and  all  else. 

'lo  look  at  Teachinj;,  for  instance.  Tniversities  are  a 
notable,  respectable  product  of  the  modern  aj;es.  Their  exist- 
ence too  is  modified,  to  the  very  basis  of  it,  by  the  existence 
of  Hooks.  I'niversiiies  arose  while  there  were  yet  no  Mooks 
procurable;  while  a  man,  for  a  sin-,'le  liook,  had  to  give  an  lo 
estate  of  land.  I'hat,  in  those  circumstances,  when  a  man 
had  some  knowledge  to  communicate,  he  should  do  it  by 
gathering  the  learners  round  him,  face  to  face,  was  a  neces- 
sity for  him.  If  you  wanted  to  know  what  Abelard  knew, 
you  must  go  and  listen  to  Abelard.  rhou.sands,  as  many 
as  thirty-thousand,'  went  to  hear  Abelard  and  that  meta- 
physical theology  of  his.  And  now  for  any  other  teacher 
who  had  also  something  of  his  own  to  teach,  there  was  a 
great  convenience  opened :  so  many  thousands  eager  to 
learn  were  already  assembled  yonder;  of  .ill  places  t!ie  best  20 
place  for  him  was  that.  I-'or  any  third  teacher  it  was  better 
still;  and  grew  ever  the  better,  the  more  teachers  there 
came.  It  only  needed  now  that  the  King  took  notice  of 
this  new  phenomenon  ;  combined  or  agglomerated  the 
various  schools  into  one  school  ;  gave  it  edifices,  i)rivileges, 
encouragements,  and  named  it  I  nirersitiU,  or  School  of  all 
Sciences :  the  University  of  Paris,  in  its  essential  char- 
acters, was  there.  The  model  of  all  subsequent  Iniversi- 
ties;  which  down  even  to  these  days,  for  six  centuries  now, 
have  gone  on  to  found  themselves.  Such,  I  conceive,  was  30 
the  origin  of  I'niversities. 

It  is  clear,  however,  that  with  this  simple  circumstance, 
facility  of  getting  Hooks,  the  whole  conditions  of  the  busi- 
1  II'  II'  IP  thirty  thousand 


I 


i|   til 


'I,, 
•I 


186 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


nc'ss  from  top  to  bottom  were  changed.     Once  invent  Print- 
ing,  you  metamorphosed  all   Universities,   or   sujierseded 
them !      The    Teacher '    needed   not   now    to   gather    men 
personally  round  him,  that  he  might  s/>ctik  to  them  what  he 
knew :  print  it  in  a  Book,  and  all  learners  far  and  wide,  for 
a  trifle,  had  it  each  at  his  own  flreside,  much  more  effectu- 
ally to  learn  it !  —  Doubtless  there  is  still  i)eculiar  virtue  in 
Speech ;  even  writers  of  Hooks  may  still,  in  some  circum- 
stances, fmd   it   convenient  to  speak  also,  —  witness  our 
10  present  meeting  here!      There  is,  une  would  say,  and  must 
ever  remain  while  man  has  a  tongue,  a  distinct  province 
for  Speech  as  well  as  for  Writing  and  Printing.     In  regard 
to  all  things  this  must  remain  ;  to  Universities  among  others. 
IJut  the  limits  of  the  two  have  nowhere  yet  been  pointed 
out,  ascertained;  much  less  put  in  practice:  the  University 
which  would  completely  take-in-  that  great  new  fact,  of  the 
existence  of  Printed  Books,  and  stand  on  a  cle.ar  footing 
for  the  Nineteenth  Uentury  as  the  Paris  one  did  for  the 
Thirteenth,  has  not  yet  come  into  existence.     If  we  think 
20  of  it,  all  that  a  University,  or  final  highest  School  can  do 
for  us,  is  still  but  what  the  first  School  began  doing,  — 
teach  us  to  ;vvr/.     We  learn  to  rani,  in  various  languages,  in 
various  sciences;  we  learn  the  alphabet  and  letters  of  all 
manner  of  Books.     But  the  place  where  we  are  to  get  know- 
ledge, even  theoretic  knowledge,  is  the  liooks  themselves  ! 
It  depends  on  what  we  read,  after  all  manner  of  Professors 
have  done  their  best  for  us.     The  true  University  of  these 
days  is  a  Collection  ot  Books. 

But  to  the   Church    itself,   as    I    hinted   already,   all   is 
30  changed,  in  its  preaching,  in  its  working,  by  the  introduc- 
tion  of    Books.      The   Church    is   the    working   recognised 
Union  of  our   I'riests  or   Prophets,  of  those  who  by  wisi- 

While  there  was  no  Writ- 


teaching  guide  the  souls  of  men. 
1  II'  ttaiher 


•^  II'  IP  I  (Make  in 


THE   HEKO   AS  A/.tX  OF  LI-.TTEKS 


187 


ing,  even  while  there  w;is  no  K.isy-\vritinj;  or  /'rhitini;;,  the 
preaching  of  the  voice  \v;i.s  the  natural  sole  method  of  per- 
forming this.  Ittit  now  with  Itooks!  -  He  that  can  write  a 
true  Hook,  lo  persuade  Kngland,  is  not  he  the  Itishop  and 
Archbishop,  the  Primate  of  Kngland  and  of  All '  Kngland  ? 
I  many  a  time  say,  the  writers  of  Newspapers,  Pamphlets, 
Poems,  Hooks,  these  if/v  the  real  working  effective  Church 
of  a  modern  country.  Nay,  not  only  our  preaching,  but 
even  our  worship,  is  not  it  too  accomplished  by  means  of 
Printed  Hooks  ?  The  noble  sentiment  which  a  gifted  soul  lo 
has  clothed  for  us  in  melodious  words,  which  brings  meloily 
into  our  hearts,  —  is  not  this  essentially/  if  we  will  under- 
stand it,  of  the  nature  of  worship  .'  I'here  are  many,  in  all 
countries,  who,  in  this  confused  time,  have  no  other  method 
of  worship.  He  who,  in  any  way,  shows'*  us  better  than  we 
knew  before  that  a  lily  of  the  fields  is  beautiful,  does  he  not 
show '^  it  us  as  an  eflluenco  of  tiie  I'ountain  of  all  He.auty  ; 
as  the  hiVidwritin:^,  made  visible  there,  of  the  great  Maker 
of  the  Universe  "i  He  has  sung  for  us,  made  us  sing  with 
him,  a  little  verse  of  a  sacred  i'saliu.  Kssentially  so.  How  20 
much  more  he  who  sings,  who  says,  or  in  any  way  brings 
home  to  our  heart  the  noble  di)iiiLjs.  feelings,  darinj^s  and 
endurances  of  a  brother  m;iu  !  He  lias  verily  touched  our 
hearts  as  with  a  live  coal  from  tlir  ,iltar.  Perhaps  there  is 
no  wot-shap  more  authentic' 

Lit(-rature,  so  far  as  it  is  Literature,  is  an  '  apocalypse  of 
Nature,'  a  revealing  of  the  'open  secret.'  It  may  well 
enough  be  named,  in  Fichte's  style,  a  'continuous  revela- 
tion '  of  the  (lodlike  in  the  Tei'estrial  and  Common  The 
(IrKllike  does  ever,  in  very  truth,  endure  there;  is  brought  ,30 
out,  now  in  this  dialect,  now  in  that,  with  varit)us  degrees 
of  clearness:  all  true  giftetl  Singers  and  Speakers  are,  con- 


1  II'  W  II' all 

2  IP  II-  IP  shews 


•'  II'  (I     IP  show 

^  no  fara^raph  in  11'  IP  II ^ 


--?■ 

i       .<l 


i  I 


r 


II  tl 


:l  i 


a 


11  •  I 


188 


LECTURES  O.V  HEKOES 


sciousky  or  unconsciously,  doinjj  so.  \\\c  d.irk  stormful 
indignsition  of  a  Byron,  so  waywird  and  perverse,  m.iy 
have  touches  of  it ;  nay  the  witlicred  mockery  of  a  French 
sceptic,  —  his  mockery  of  the  h  aise,  i  love  and  worship  of 
the  True.  How  much  more  the  sphere  h  «rm('iiy  of  a  Sh.iks- 
peare,  of  a  Cloethe  ;  the  cathedral-music  of  a  Milton!  I'hey 
are  something  too,  thosi'  humble  genuine  lark-notes  of  a 
Burns, — skylark,  startin<j  from  thehuiid)le  fun. »\\.  f.irove' 
head  into  the  blue  depths,  ai  <1  siufjini^  to  us  >w  yenuint  ly 

10  there!  For'  all  true  singin;;  is  of  the  nature  of  worslup: 
as  indeed  all  true  worA-iii!^  may  be  said  to  In;,  —  whereat 
such  shij^iH)^  is  but  the  record,  and  tit  melodious  representa- 
tion, to  us.'  Fragments  of  real  Mhutdi  Litur>j;y '  and 
«  Body*  of  Homilies,'  strangely  ci  sguised  from  the  common 
eye,  are  to  be  found  weltering  in  that  huge  froth-ocean  of 
Printed  Speech  we  loosely  call  Literature!  Hooks  are  our 
Church  too. 

Or  turning  now  to  the  (Government  of  men.     Witenage- 
mote,  old  rarliament,  was  a  great  thing.      The  affairs  of 

20  the  nation  were  there  deliberated  and  decided  ;  what  we 
were  to  do  as  a  nation.  But  does  not,  thougii  the  name 
Parliament  subsists,  the  parliamentary  ilebate  go  on  now, 
everywhere  ar.d  at  all  times,  in  a  far  more  co.nprchensive 
way,  out  of  Parliament  altogether?  Burke  said  tlicre  were 
Three  Estates  in  Parliament ;  but,  in  the  Reporters'  (Jallery 
yonder,  there  sat  a  I'oiDtli  KsUitc  more  important  far  than 
they  all.  It  is  not  a  figure  of  sixiech,  or  a  witty  saying ;  it 
is  a  literal  fact,  —  very  momentous  to  us  in  these  times. 
Literature  is  our  Parliament  too.      Printing,  which  comes 

30  necessarily  out  of  Writing,  I  say  oiten,  is  equivalent  to  De- 
mocracy: invent  Writing,  Democracy  is  inevitable.     Writ- 
ing brings  Printing;  brings  universal  everyday  extempore 
Printing,  as  we  see  at  present.     Whoever  can  speak,  speak 
» 1  not  in  IP  •  H'  body 


f 


THE  IIEKO   AS  MAX  OF  LETTF.RS 


189 


ing  now  to  the  whole  nation,  becomes  i  i)owt'r,  .1  branch  of 
government,  with  inalienable  weight  in  law-making,  in  all 
acts  of  authority.  It  matters  not  what  rank  he  has,  what 
revenues  or  garnitures:  the  requisite  thing  is,  that  he  have 
a  tonjjuj'  Ahich  others  will  listen  to;  this  and  nothing  more 
i>  requisite.  The  nation  is  governed  by  all  that  has  tongue 
in  the  nation:  Democracy  is  virtu.ally  thire.  Add  only, 
that  whatsoever  power  exists  will  hav»*  itself,  by  and  by, 
organised  ;  working  secretly  under  bandages,  obscurations, 
obstructions,  it  will  never  rest  till  it  get  to  work  free,  unen-  10 
cumbered,'  visible  to  all.  Democracy  virtually  extant  will 
insist  on  becoming  palpably  extant.  — 

On  all  sides,  are  we  not  driven  to  the  conclusion  that,  of 
tlie  things  which  man  can  do  or  make  here  below,  by  far 
tlie  most  momentous,  wonderful  and  worthy  are  the  things 
we  caU  Itooks!  Those  poor  bits  of  rag-paper  with  black 
ink  on  them;  —  from  the  Daily  Newspaper  to  the  sacred 
Hebrew  B<i()K,  what  have  they  not  done,  what  are  they  not 
doing  !  —  For  indeed,  whatever  be  the  outward  form  of  the 
tiling  (bits  of  paj)er,  as  we  say,  and  bl.ick  ink),  is  it  not  20 
verily,  at  bottom,  the  highest  act  of  man's  faculty  that  pro- 
duces a  Book?  It  is  the  Thoiv^ht  of  man;  the  true  thau- 
maturgic  virtue  ;  by  which  man  works  all  things  whatsoever. 
All  that  he  does,  and  brings  to  pass,  is  the  vesture  of  a 
Thought.  'I'his  London  City,  with  all  its  houses,  palaces, 
steamengines,  cathedrals,  and  huge  immeasurable  tratbc  and 
tumult,  what  is  it  but  a  Thought,  hut  millions  of  Thoughts 
made  into  One  ;  — a  huge  imme;isurable  Spirit  of  a  Thoucht, 
embodied  in  brick,  in  iron,  smoke,  dust,  I'alaces,  Parlia- 
ments, Hackney  Coaches,  Kallierine  Docks,  and  the  rest  of  30 
it !  Not  a  brick  was  made  but  some  man  had  to  think  of  the 
making  of  that  brick.  —  The  thing  we  called  'bits  of  paper 
with  traces  of  bhick  ink,'  is  the ////-(■,(/ embodiment  a  Thought 

*  H'  IP  II-*  unincumbered 


1 , 


%■ 


% 


!   I    :'' 


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(ANSI  ond  ISO  TEST  CHART  No.  2) 


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190 


LECTURES  ON  IIKKOKS 


of  man  can  have.     No  wonder  it  is,  in  al!  ways,  the  activest 
and  noblest. 

All  this,  of  the  importance  and  supreme  importance  of 
the  Man  of  Letters  in  modern  Society,  and  how  the  Press  is 
to  such  a  degree  superseding  the  Pulpit,  the  Senate,  the 
Senattis  Acailcmkus  and  much  else,  has  been  admitted  for  a 
good  while;  and  recognised  often  enough,  in  late  times, 
with  a  sort  of  sentimental  triumph  and  wonderment.  It 
seems  to  me,  the  Sentimental  by  and  by  will  have  to  give 

10  place  to  the  I'ractical.  If  Men  of  Letters  an-  so  incal- 
culably influential,  actually  performing  such  work  for  us 
from  age  to  age,  and  even  from  day  to  day,  then  I  think  we 
may  conclude  that  Men  of  Letters  will  not  always  wander 
like  unrecognised  unregulated  Ishmaelites  among  us  !  What- 
soever thing,  as  I  said  above,  has  virtual  unnoticed  power 
will  cast-off  '  its  wrappages,  bandages,  and  step-forth  ^  one 
day  with  palpably  -rticulated,  universally  visible  power. 
That  one  man  wea  the  clothes,  and  take  tlie  wages,  of  a 
function  which  is  done  by  quite  another:   theie  can  be  no 

20  profit  in  this  ;  this  is  nijt  right,  it  is  wrong.  And  yet,  alas, 
the  making  oi  it  right,  — what  a  business,  for  long  times  to 
come!  Sure  enough,  this  that  we  call  Organisation  of  the 
Literary  Guild  is  still  a  great  way  off,  encumbered  ^  with 
all  manner  of  complexities.  If  you  asked  me  what  were 
the  best  possible  organisation  for  the  Men  of  Letters  in 
modern  society  ;  the  arrangement  *  of  furtherance  and  regu- 
lation, grounded  the  most  accurately  on  the  actual  facts  of 
their  position  and  of  the  world's  position,  —  I  should  beg 
to  say  that  the  problem  far  exceeded  my  faculty  !     It  is  not 

30  one  man's  faculty  ;  it  is  that  of  many  succc  e  men  turned 
earnestly  upon  it,  that  will  bring-out*  even        approximate 

1  IP  IF  IP  cast  off  ni'  11=  IPincumlxTed 

2  H'  JI^  IPstepfcirth  *  II'  II-  IP  arrangement, 

'^W  W-  IP  bring  out 


<'  i 


Till:    HERO  AS   MAX  01    LETTI-.NS 


191 


solution.  What  the  best  arrangement  were,  none  of  us 
could  say.  IJut  if  you  ask,  \\  hich  is  the  worst  t  I  answer  : 
This  which  we  now  have,  that  Chaos  should  sit  umpire  in 
it ;  this  is  the  worst.  I"o  the  best,  or  any  good  one,  there 
is  yet  a  long  way. 

One  remark  I  must  not  omit,  That  royal  or  parliamentary 
grants  of  money  are  i^y  no  means  the  chief  thing  wanted  ! 
To  give  our  Men  of  Letters  sti|)ends,  endowments  and  all 
furtherance  of  cash,  will  do  little  towards  the  business. ^  On 
the  whole,  one  is  weary  of  hearing  about  the  omnipotence  lo 
of  money.  I  will  say  rather  that,  for  a  genuine  man,  it  is 
no  evil  to  be  poor  ;  that  there  ought  o  Le  Literary  Men 
poor,  —  to  show  '  whether  they  are  g  luiine  or  not  !  Men 
dicant  Orders,  bodies  of  good  men  doomed  to  A;',  were 
instituted  in  the  Christian  Church;  a  most  natural  and 
even  necessary  development  of  the  spirit  of  (  hristianitv. 
It  was  itself  founded  on  Poverty,  on  Sorrow,  Contradiction, 
Crucifixion,  every  species  of  worldly  Distress  and  Degrada- 
ticm.  We  may  say.  that  he  who  has  not  known  those 
things,  and  learned  from  them  the  priceless  lessons  they  -o 
have  to  teach,  has  missed  a  good  opportunity  of  schooling. 
To  beg,  and  go  barefoot,  in  co;irse  woollen  cloak  with  a 
rope  round  your  loins,  and  be  despised  of  all  the  world, 
was  no  beautiful  business;  —  nor  an  honourable  one  in  any 
eye,  till  the  nobleness  of  those  who  did  so  had  made  it 
honoured  of  some  I" 

Begging  is  not  in  our  course  at  the  present  time:  but 
for  the  rest  of  it,  who  will  say  that  a  Johnson  is  not  per- 
haps the  better  for  being  poor.'  It  is  needful  for  him,  at 
all  rates,  to  know  that  outward  profit,  that  success  of  any  ,lo 
kind  is  not  the  goal  he  has  to  aim  at.  Pride,  vanity,  ill- 
conditioned  egoism  of  all  sorts,  are  bred  in  his  heart,  as  in 


■   1 


I  "I? 


I 


,  \ 


♦       T.! 


'   11      II-    ir;,hcw 

*  no  paragraph  in  II'  W  IP 


1. 


l'J2 


LECTURES  OiX  HEROES 


every  heart ;  need,  above  all,  to  he  cast-out '  of  his  heart,— 
to  be,  with  whatever  pangs,  t(jrn-out'of  it,  cast-forth  '■  from 
it;  as  a  thing  worthless.  IJyron,  born  rich  and  noble,  made- 
out  *  even  less  than  Hums,  poor  and  plebeian.  Who  knows 
but,  in  that  same  'best  possible  organisation  'as  yet  far  o IT, 
Poverty  may  still  enter  as  an  important  element.'  What  if 
our  Men  of  Letters,  men  setting-up  "'  to  be  .Spiritual  Hero«:s, 
were  still  then,  as  they  row  are,  a  kind  of '  involuntary  monas- 
tic order;'  bound  still  to  this  same  ugly  Poverty,  -  till  they 
lo  had  tried  what  was  in  it  too,  till  they  had  learned  to  make 
it  too  do  for  them  !  Money,  in  truth,  can  do  much,  but  it 
cannot  do  all.  We  must  know  the  province  of  it,  and  con- 
fine it  there  ;  and  even  spurn  it  back,  when  it  wishes  to  get 
farther. 

Besides,  were  the  money-furtherances,  the  proper  season 
for  them,  the  tit  assigner  of  them,  all  settled,  -how  is  the 
Burns  to  be  recognised  that  merits  these  .>  He  must  pa.ss 
through  the  ordeal,  and  prove  hi-  If.  77//.f  ordeal ;  this 
wild  welter  of  a  chaos  which  is  crJled  Literary  Life  :  this 

20  too  is  a  kind  of  ordeal  !  There  is  clear  truth  in  the  idea 
that  a  struggle  from  the  lower  classes  of  society,  towards 
the  upper  regions  and  rewards  of  society,  must  ever  con- 
tinue. Strong  men  are  born  there,  who  ought  to  stand 
elsewhere  than  there.  The  manifold,  inextricably  complex, 
universal  struggle  of  these  constitutes,  and  must  constitute, 
what  is  called  the  progress  of  society.  For  Men  of  Letters, 
as  for  all  other  sorts  of  men.  How  to  regulate  that  strug- 
gle .'  There  is  the  whole  question.  To  leave  it  as  it  is,  at 
the  mercy  of  blind  Chance;  a  whirl  of  distracted  atom 

30  one  cancelling  the  other;  one  of  the  thousand  arriving 
saved,  nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine « lost  by  the  way  ;  your 

>  H'  IP  IP  cast  out  4  H>  IIMP  made  out 

2  IP  W  IP  torn  out         •>  II'  fr^  IP  setting  up 

3  IP  11=  IP  ca.st  forth       '   H'  IP  IP  nine  hundred  and  ninety  nine 


THE   HKKO   AS   MAX   Ol-    LETTERS 


V)i 


royal  Johnson  lan<;uisliini2j  inactive  in  jjarrcts,  or  harnessed 
to  the  yoke  of  I'rinter  (ave';  your  Hums  dyin;;  broken- 
hearted" as  a  danger  ':  your  Rousseau  driven  into  mad 
exasperation,  kindling  Irench  Revolutions  by  his  para- 
doxes :  this,  as  we  said,  is  clearlv  enougii  the  'i^vrst  reirula- 
tion.      I'he  A'.f/,  alas,  is  far  from  us  ! 

And  yet  there  can  be  no  doubt  but  it  is  coming  ;  advanc- 
ing on  us,  as  yet  hidden  in  the  bosom  of  centuries:  tliis  is 
a  prophecy  one  can  risk.  I'or  so  soon  as  iiieii  get  to  dis- 
cern the  importance  of  a  thing,  they  do  infallibly  set  about  \c 
arranging  it,  facilitating,  forwarding  it ;  and  rest  not  till, 
in  some  approximate  degree,  they  have  accomplished  that. 
I  say,  of  all  Priesthoods,  Aristocracies,  (Governing  (lasses 
at  present  extant  in  the  world,  there  is  no  class  comparable 
for  importance  to  that  Priesthood  of  the  Writers  of  Hooks. 
This  is  a  fact  which  he  who  runs  may  read,  -  and  draw 
inferences  from.  "Literature  will  take  care  of  itself," 
answered  Mr.  Pitt,  when  applied-to*  for  seme  help  for 
I'.urns.  "  Ves,"  adds*^  Mr.  Soutliey,  "it  will  lake  care  of 
itself;  and  of  yoH  too,  if  you  do  not  look  to  it  !  "  20 

'I'he  result  to  individual  Men  of  Letters  is  not  the  momen- 
tous one  ;  they  are  but  individuals,  an  int'.nitesimal  fraction 
of  the  great  body;  they  can  struggle  en,  and  live  or  else 
die,  as  they  have  been  wont.  Put  it  deeply  concerns  the 
whole  society,  whether  it  will  set  its  li:^ht  on  high  places, 
to  walk  thereby;  or  trample  it  under  foot,  and  scatter  it 
in  all  ways  of  wild  waste  (not  without  conilagration  ),  as 
heretofore!  Light  is  tlie  one  th;ng  wanted  for  the  world. 
Put  wisdom  in  the  head  of  the  world,  the  world  ''  will  tight 
its  battle  victoriously,  and  be  tin  best  world  man  can  make  30 
it.      I   call"  this  anomaly  of   a  disorganic   Literary  (lass 


i     I 


H 


t  •«  f 

1. 1 


'  II"  H=  Cavf.  ■  U'  11=  Causer,  ■  IM  .niswtrs 

-  IP  IP'  bn.kenlitartucl        ^  IP  IP  IP  applied  tu       '■  IP  it 
■  IP  li^-  rP.aiiul 


:mi 


i 


194 


LhCTUKES  OX  tH':iiOES 


the  heart  of  all  othei  anomalies,  at  once  product  and 
parent ;  some  good  arrangement  f.>r  tliat  would  be  as  the 
puiutHm  salicns  of  a  new  vitality  and  just  arrangement  for 
all.  Already,  -n  some  European  countries,  in  France,  in 
Prussia,  one  traces  some  beginnings  ot  an  arrangement  for 
the  Literary  ("lass;  indicating  the  gradual  possibility  of 
such.  I  believe  that  it  is  possible ;  that  it  will  have  to  he 
possible. 

By  far  the  most  interesting  fact   I  hear  about  the  (  lii- 

10  nese  is  one  on  which  we  cannot  arrive  at  clearness,  but 
which  excites  endless  curiosity  even  in  ti.e  dim  state:  this 
namely,  that  they  do  attempt  to  make  their  Men  of  Letters 
their  Governors !  It  would  be  rash  to  say,  one  understood 
how  this  was  done,  or  with  what  degree  of  success  it  was 
done.  All  such  things  must  be  very  ////successful  ;  yet  a 
small  degree  of  success  is  precious;  the  very  attempt  how 
preciou.  !  There  does  seem  to  be,  all  over  China,  a  more 
or  less  active  search  everywhere  to  discover  tiie  men  of 
talent  that  grow  up  in  the  young  generation.     .Schools  there 

20  are  for  every  one:  a  foolish  sort  of  training,  yet  still  a  sort. 
The  youths  who  distinguish  themselves  in  tlie  lower  school 
are  promoted  into  favourable  stations  in  the  higher,  that 
they  may  still  more  distinguish  themselves,  —  forward  and 
forward:  it  appears  to  be  out  of  these  that  the  Official 
Persons,  and  incipient  Governors,  are  taken.  These  are 
they  whom  they  try  first,  whether  they  can  govern  or  not. 
And  surely  with  the  best  hope  :  for  they  are  the  men  that 
have  already  shown  '  intellect.  Try  them  ':  they  have  not 
governed  or  administered  as  yet ;  perhaps  they  cannot  ; 
30  but  there  is  no  doubt  they  Iui7e  some  Understanding,* - 
without  which  no  man  can  !  Neither  is  Understanding  a 
tool^  as  we  are  too  apt  to  figure ;  '  it  is  a  //(///(/  which  can 

I  11'  HMI^  shewn  Ml'  thtm, 

3  H'  H»  H^  understanding 


THE  HEKO   AS  MAX  Ol-   I.KTTENS 


195 


handle  any  tool'  Try  these  men  :  they  .ire  of  all  others 
the  best  worth  trying.  -  Surely  there  is  no  kind  of  {govern- 
ment, constitution,  revolution,  social  apparatus  or  arranj;e- 
ment,  that  I  know  of  in  this  world,  so  promising  to  one's 
scientific  curiosity  as  this.  The  man  of  intellect  at  the  top 
of  affairs :  this  is  the  aim  of  .all  constitutions  and  revolu- 
tions, if  they  have  any  aim.  For  the  man  cf  true  intellect, 
as  I  assert  and  believe  always,  is  the  noblehearted  man 
withal,  the  true,  just,  humane  and  valiant  man.  (let  liim 
for  governor,  all  i.i  got ;  fail  to  get  him,  though  you  had  lo 
Constitutions  plentiful  as  bl.ackberries,  and  a  Parliament  in 
every  vilLage,  there  is  nothing  yet  got !  — 

These  things  look  strange,  truly  ;  and  are  not  such  as  we 
commonly  speculate  upon.  Hut  we  are  fallen  into  strange 
times ;  these  things  will  require  to  be  speculated  upon  ;  to 
be  rendered  practicable,  to  be  in  some  way  put  in  practice. 
These,  and  many  others.  On  all  hands  of  us,  there  is  the 
announcement,  audible  enough,  that  the  old  Kmpire  of 
Routine  has  ended  ;  that  to  say  a  thing  has  long  been,  is 
no  reason  for  its  continuing  to  be.  The  things  which  have  20 
been  are  fallen  into  decay,  are  fallen  into  incompetence; 
large  masses  of  mankind,  in  every  society  of  our  Kurope, 
are  no  longer  capable  of  living  at  all  by  the  things  which 
have  been.  When  millions  of  men  can  no  longer  by  their 
utmost  exertion  gain  food  for  themselves,  and  'the  third 
man  for  thirty-six  weeks  each  year  is  short  of  tiiird-rate 
potatoes,'  the  things  which  have  been  must  decidedly  pre- 
pare to  alter  themselves !  —  I  will  now  quit  this  of  the 
organisation  of  Men  of  Letters. 


il 


e: 


'•'1 


''•7 


Alas,  the  evil  that  press(  '   heaviest  on   those    Literary  30 
Heroes  of  ours  was  not  the  vvant  of  organisation  for  Men 
of  Letters,  but  a  far  deeper  one;  out  uf  which,  indeed,  this 
and  so  many  other  evils  for  the  Literary  ^Lan,  and  for  all 


196 


LECTUNES   OX  HEROES 


men,  had,  ns  from  their  fountain,  taken  rise.  That  our 
Hero  as  Man  of  letters  had  to  travel  without  hij,'hway, 
companionless,  through  an  inorganic  chaos,  -and  to  leave 
his  own  life  and  faculty  lying  there,  as  a  partial  contribu- 
tion towards /«j///><;'  some  highway  through  it:  this,  had 
not  his  faculty  itself  been  so  perverted  and  paralysed,  he 
might  have  put-up  •  with,  might  have  considered  to  be  but 
the  common  lot  of  Heroes.  His  fatal  misery  was  the  spirit- 
ual paralysis,  so  we  may  name  it,  vjf  the  Age  in  which  his 

10  life  lay ;  whereby  his  life  too,  do  what  he  might,  was  half- 
paralysed  !  The  Eighteenth  was  a  .s;<y»//,v?/ Century  ;  in 
which  little  word  there  is  a  whole  Pandora's  Box  of  miser- 
ies. Scepticism  means  not  intellectual  Doubt  alone,  but 
moral  Doubt;  all  sorts  of  ///tidelity,  insincerity,  spiritual 
paralysis.  Perhaps,  in  few  centuries  that  one  could  specify 
since  the  world  began,  was  a  life  of  Heroism  more  difficult 
for  a  man.  That  was  not  an  age  of  Faith,  -  an  a<fe  of 
Heroes  !  The  very  possibility  of  Heroism  had  been,  as  it 
were,  formally  abnegated  in  the  minds  of   all.     Heroism 

20  was  gone  forever;  Triviality,  Formulism  and  Common- 
place were  come  forever.  The  'age  of  miracles'  had 
been,  or  perhaps  had  not  been ;  but  it  was  not  any 
longer.  An  effete  world;  wherein  Wonder,  Greatness, 
Godhood  could  not  now  dwell ;  —  in  one  word,  a  godless 
world  ! 

How  mean,  dwarfish  are  their  ways  of  thinking,  in  this 
time,  —compared  not  with  the  Christian  Shakspeares  and 
Miltons,  but  with  the  old  Pagan  Skaldi,  with  any  species 
of  believing  men  !  The  living  Trke  Igdrasil,  with  the 
30  mv;lodious  prophetic  waving  of  its  world-wide  boughs,  deep- 
rooted  as  Hela,  has  died-out  ^  into  the  clanking  of  a  World- 
Machine.      '  Tree  '  and  '  Machine  :  '  contrast    these    two 

»  H'  IP  IP  put  up 
*  IP  IP  IP  died  out 


mi£i,= 


l|    I 


THE    llENO    AS   MAX  OF   l.l-.TIIN.S 


197 


things. 


I,'  for  my  share,  declare  the  world  to  he  no 
machine!  i  say  that  it  does  not  j,'()  by  wheel-i.nd-pinion 
'motives,'  self-interests,  checks,  balances;  that  there  is 
something  far  other  in  it  than  the  clank  of  spinning-jennies, 
and  parliamentary  majorities  ;  and,  on  the  whole,  that  it 
is  not  a  machine  at  all '  !  The  old  Norse  Heathen  had  a 
truer  notion  of  (Jod's-world  than  these  poor  Machine- 
Sceptics:  the  old  Heathen  \orse  were  siiiuir  men.  Hut 
for  these  poor  .Sceptics  there  was  no  sincerity,  no  truth. 
Half-truth  and  hearsay  was  called  truth.  I'ruth,  for  most  ic 
men,  meant  plausibility  ;  to  be  measured  by  the  number  of 
votes  you  could  get.  Ihey  had  lost  any  notion  that  sin- 
cerity was  possible,  or  of  what  sincerity  was.  How  many 
IMausibilities  asking,  with  unaffected  surprise  and  the  air 
of  offended  virtue.  What !  am  not  I  sincere .»  Spiritual 
Taralysis,  I  say,  nothing  left  l)ut  a  Mechanical  life,  was  the 
characteristic  of  that  century.  For  the  common  m-.n, 
unless  happily  he  stood  Ih-low  his  century  and  belonged  to 
another  prior  one,  it  was  imjxjssible  to  be  a  IJeliever,  a 
Hero  ;  he  lay  buried,  unconscious,  under  these  baleful  inHu-  20 
ences.  I'o  the  strongest  man,  only  with  infinite  struggle 
and  confusion  was  it  possible  to  work  himself  half-loose; 
and  lead  as  it  were,  in  an  enchanted,  most  tragical  way,  a 
spiritual  death-in-life,  and  be  a  Half-Hero  ! 

Scepticism  is  the  name  we  give  to  all  this ;  as  the  chief 
symptom,  as  the  chief  origin  of  all  this.  (  oncerniug  which 
so  much  were  to  be  said  !  It  would  take  many  Discourses, 
not  a  small  fraction  of  one  Discourse,  to  state  what  one 
feels  about  that  Eighteenth  Century  and  its  ways.  .As 
indeed  this,  and  the  like  of  this,  which  we  now  call  Scepti-  2,0 
cism,  is  precisely  the  black  malady  and  life-foe,  against 
which  all  teaching  and  discoursing  since  man's  life  began 

'  Ml'  i.  forniy  share,  declare  the  world  to  be  no  Machine  ;  it  does 
not  go  by  wheels  and  pinions  at  all ! 


.1         !t 


;4 


$  ii 


196 


LEC  TUNES  OX  llEKOES 


has  directed  itself:  the  battle  of  Helief  against  rnbelief  is 
the  never-ending  battle!  Neither  is  it  in  the  way  of  crim- 
ination that  one  would  wish  to  s|)eak.  Scepticism,  for  that 
century,  we  must  consider  as  the  J;~ay  of  old  ways  of 
believing,  the  preparation  afar  otT  for  new  better  and  wider 
ways,  —an  inevitable  thing.  We  will  not  blame  men  for 
it;  we  will  lament  their  hard  fate.  We  will  understand 
that  destruction  of  o\A.  forms  is  not  destruction  of  everlast- 
ing suhstiviccs ;  that  Scepticism,  as  sorrowful  and  hateful  as 

10  we  see  it,  is  not  an  end  but  a  beginning. 

The  other  day  speaking,  without  prior  purpose  that  way, 
of  Ikntham's  theory  of  man  and  man's  life,  1  chanced  to 
call  it  a  more  beggarly  one  than  Mahomet's.  I  am  bound 
to  s.  /,  now  when  it  is  once  uttered,  that  such  is  my  delib- 
erate opinion.  Not  that  one  would  mean  offence  against 
the  man  Jeremy  Hentham,  or  those  who  resiJect  and  believe 
him.  lientham  himself,  and  evin  the  creed  of  Bentham, 
seems  to  me  comparatively  worthy  of  praise.  It  is  a  deter- 
minate bein;^  what  all  the  world,  in  a  cowardly  half-and-half 

::ri  manner,  was  tending  to  be.  Let  us  have  the  crisis ;  we 
shall  either  have  death  or  the  cure.  I  call  this  gross,  steam- 
engine  Utilitarianism  an  approach  towards  new  I'aith.  It 
was  a  laying-down'  of  cant;  a  saying  to  i-  jself:  "Well 
then,  this  world  is  a  dead  iron  machine,  the  god  of  it  (Irav- 
itation  and  seltish  Hunger ;  let  us  see  what,  by  checking 
and  balancing,  and  good  adjustment  of  tooth  and  pinion, 
can  be  made  of  it !  "  Benthamism  has  som  thing  complete, 
manful,  in  such  fearless  committal  of  itself  to  what  it  finds 
true ;  you  may  call  it  Heroic,  though  a  Heroism  with  its 

30  eyes  put  out !  It  is  the  culminating  point,  and  fearless 
ultimatum,  of  what  lay  in  the  half-and-half  state,  pervading 
man's  whole  existence  in  that  Eighteenth  Century.  It 
seems  to  me,  all  deniers  of  Godhood,  and  all  lip-believers 

1  IP  IP  IP  laying  down 


THE   HE  NO  AS  MAX  OF  LETTEKS 


199 


«)f  it,  are  Ixniinl  to  he  liL-nthamites,  if  thty  iiavc  couraj^c 
uul  lidiusty.  l!c'nth;unisin  is  an  tyclcss  Heroism:  the 
lluin;in  Species,  like  ;i  li;ipless  blinded  S.unson  grinding  in 
the  I'hilistiiie  Mill,  ehisps  convulsivelj  the  pillat  A  its 
Mill;  hrir.i;s  huge  ruin  down,  l)ut  ultimately  deliverance 
withal.     (I    .•..ntham  I  meant  to  say  no  iiarm. 

IJut  this  1  do  say,  and  would  wish  all  men  to  know  and 
lay  to  heart,  that  he  who  discerns  nothing  but  Mechanism 
in  the  Universe  has  in  the  fatalest '  way  missed  the  secret 
of  the  I'niverse  altogether.  That  all  (lodhood  should  van-  lo 
ish  out  of  men's  conception  of  this  Universe  seems  to 
tiie  jirecisely  the  most  brutal  error,  —  I  will  not  dispar- 
age Heathenism  by  calling  it  a  Heathen  error,-  that  men 
could  fall  into.  It  is  not  true  ;  it  is  false  at  the  very  heart 
of  it.  A  man  who  thinks  so  will  think  7i'/v^//j,'  about  all 
things  in  the  world  ;  this  original  sin  w  ill  vitiate  all  other 
conclusions  he  can  form.  One  might  call  it  the  most 
lamentable  of  Delusions,  —  not  forgetting  Witchcraft  it- 
self! Witchcraft  worshipped  at  least  a  living  Devil;  but 
this  worships  a  dead  iron  Devil ;  no  dod,  not  even  a  Devil  I  20 
—  Whatsoever  is  noble,  divine,  inspired,  drops  thereby  out 
of  life.      There   remains  everywhere    in   life   a    despicable 

iit-mortiium :  the  mechanical  hull,  all  soul  fled  out  of  it. 
now  can  a  man  act  heroically?  The  'Doctrine  of  Mo- 
tives' will  teach  him  that  it  is,  under  more  or  less  disguise, 
nothing  but  a  wretched  love  of  Pleasure,  fear  of  I'ai.i  ;  that 
Hunger,  of  applause,  of  cash,  of  whatsoever  victual  it  may 
be,  is  the  ultimate  fact  of  man's  life.  Atheism,  in  brief;  — 
which  does  indeed  frightfully  punish  itself.  The  man,  I 
say,  is  become  spiritually  a  paralytic  man  ;  this  godlike  3° 
I'nivf  se  a  dead  mechanical  steamengine,-  all  working  by 
motives,  checks,  balances,  and  I  know  not  wh..t ;  wherein, 

»  W  fatallest 

*  H'  Steameneine     H'  Steam-engine 


\    ..i 


f 


■'i 


Jl 


14 


f 

\' 

\ 

; 

^ 

1 

4 

s 

200 


/./.C/rAV.V   ox   ///-.A'O/S 


as  in  the  dctcstablt;  belly  of  some  Phalaris'-lUill  <.(  in>  in\:\ 
contrivinj,',  he,  the  pour  I'h.il.iris  nils  tniscr.ibly  'lyiii};'! 

Ik-'licl  I  tictine  to  he  the  healthy  act  of  a  man^  mind.  It 
is  a  mysterious  indescrilj.ihle  process,  that  of  },'ettinj{  to 
believe;  indescribable,  as  all  vital  acts  are.  We  have 
our  mind  «iven  us,  not  that  it  may  cavil  and  aryue,  but 
that  it  may  s^e  into  somethini,',  ;,'ive  us  clear  belief  and 
understandin;;  about  something',  whereon  we  are  then  to 
proceed  to  act.      Doubt,  truly,   is  not   itself  a  crime.     (  cr- 

lo  tainly  we  do  not  rush  out.  cluuhup-  the  lirst  thin;;  we 
(ind,  and  stt  iij;htway  believe  that !  All  manner  of  doubt, 
inquiry,  fr*ctVi<  as  it  is  named,  about  all  manner  of  objects, 
dwells  in  every  reasonable  mind.  It  is  the  mystic  working 
of  the  mind,  on  the  object  it  is  j,',/////;'  to  know  and  believe, 
lielief  conns  out  of  all  this,  above  j,'round,  like  the  tree 
from  its  hidden  r,>,>/s.  Hut  now  if.  even  on  common  things, 
we  require  that  a  man  keep  his  doubts  si/r/i/,  and  not  babble 
of  them  till  they  in  some  measure  become  atVirmations  or 
denials;  how  much  more  in  regard  to  the  highest  things, 

:3  impossible  to  speak-of  '  in  words  at  all!  I'hat  a  m:u\ 
parade  his  doubt,  and  get  to  imagine  that  debating  and 
logic  (which  nieans  at  best  only  the  manner  of  /,/////^'  us 
your  thought,  your^  belief  or  disbelief,  about  a  thing)  is 
the  triumph  and  true  work  of  what  intellect  he  has:  alas, 
this  is  as  if  you  should  orcrtuni  the  tree,  and  instead  of 
green  boughs,  leaves  and  fruits,  show*  us  ugly  taloned  roots 
turned-up"  into  the  air,  —and  no  growth,  only  death  and 
misery  going-on  ^1 

I-'or  tiie  '   ■•.'pticism,  as  I  said,  is  not  intellectual  only  ;  it 
2P  is  m^ral  :i..,o ;  a  chronic  atrophy  and  disease  of  the  whole 

'  IM  II- dying!—  ♦«<-////  W 

MI'  IP  IPclutch  up  '  H'  II- H^shew 

8  ir  H-  H^  siJtak  of  ••  II'  11^  HJ  turned  up 

'  H«  H»  H3  going  on  I 


Tin:    llh.k'O   AS   MAX  ,)/.    It  TTINS 


2<>l 


soul.      A  man  liv«-s  l.y  htlievin;;  snmrthin- ;   not   |.\  ,l,.|,.tt- 
iriK  and  .irfiuin;,'  .ilu.ut  m  ,  ,y  tl.in-s.      A  vi.l  i-.,sc  f<.r  him 
whi-n    ill  that  he  can  m.in,i«f  to  hciifvu  is  v.nu'thinn  '>«' 
can  button  in  hin  |).H.ket,  an<l  with  (.n.-  or  thf  otht-r  or-an 
eat  and  dijrfM  !     I.owit  than  ili.u  W  will  not  ;;.t.     We  call 
those  a^jes  in  which  he  «ets       l„w  the  mouriifiilest.'  sickest 
and  meanest  of  all  a-es.      Ihe  w.^rld's  heart  is  palsie<l.  sick  : 
how  can  any  limb  of  it  be  whole  '     (Jenuine  Actin-  ceases 
in  all  departments  of  the  world's  work;  dextrous-  Sin)=' 
tude  of   Actinj;  bejjins.      Ihe  world's  wa^es  are  pockt,    i      ■ 
the   world's  work   is   not  done.      Heroes   have   «.>ne-oiu    ; 
Quacks  have  comein.*     Accordin-iy.  what  (  entury.  sincJ 
the  end  ol   uie   Roman  world,   which  also  was  a   time  of 
scepticism,  simulacra  and  universal  decadence,  so  abounds 
with  (Quacks  as   that    Ki-hteentl.  .'      Consider   them,  with 
their  tumid  sentimental   va|)ourin;,'  about    virtue,    benevo- 
lence,    -the  wretched   <Juacks(|uadron,  (  .ajjiiostro  at   the 
head  of  them  !      Few  men  were  without  ([uackery  ;  they  had 
;,'ot  to  consider  it  a  necessary  in<;redient  and  amalfiam  for 
truth.     Chatham,  our  brave  Chatham  himself,  comes  down  2' 
to  the  IJouse.  all  wrapt  ,ind  banda;,'e'' :  he  'has  crawled 
out  in  great   bodily   sutTering,' and  s(      •, ;      /'/-,•/•,  says 
Walpole,  th.it  he  is  actinj;  th-j   .-,ick   i.  ,..  ;    in  the   tire  ot 
debate,  snatches  his  arm  fr:,m  '!ie  slini,'.  and  oratorically 
swings    and    brandish<-s    it!     (  '   wli.mi    himself    lives    the 
strangest  mimetic  life.  I.  If-hero,  i:  rlf-tiuack,  all  ,ilon-.      lor 
indeed  the  world   is  full  of  dupes;  and  you  have  to  gain 
the  7i>orl,rs  suffrage  !      How  the  duties  of 'the  world  will  he 
done  in  that  case,  what  (piantities  of  error,  which   means 
fadure,  which  means  sorrow  and  miser-,  to  some  atul  to  30 
many,  will    gradually  accumulate  in  all   provinces  of  the 
world's  business,  we  need  not  compute. 


H    11 


'  IP  mournfullest 

2  H'  W  W  dexterous 


'  If  11=  IP  Ron.,  out 
*  II'  H--  IP  come  in 


i 


202 


LECTURES  OX  HEROES 


It  seems  to  me,  you  lay  your  finjjer  here  on  the  heart  of 
the  world's  maladies,  when  you  call   it  a  Sceptical  World. 
An  Insincere  world  ;  a  godless  untruth  of  a  world  !      It  is 
out  of  this,  as   I    consider,  that   the  whole   tribe  of  social 
pestilences,  French   Revolutions,  Chartisms,  and  what  not, 
have  derived  their    being,    -  their   chief   necessity   to  be. 
This  must  alter.      Till  this  alter,  nothing  can  beneficially 
alter.      My  one  hope  of  the  world,  my  inexpugnable  conso- 
lation in    looking  at  the  miseries  of  the  world,  is  that  this 
10  is  altering.     Here  and  there  one  does  now  find  a  man  who 
knows,  as  of  old,  that  this  world  is  a  Truth,  and  no  Plau- 
sibility and  Falsity  ;  that  he  himself  is  alive,  not  dead  or 
paralytic;  and  that  the  world  is  alive,  instinct  with  (lod- 
hood,  beautiful  and  awful,  even  as  in  the  beginning  of  days  ! 
One  man  once  knowing  this,  many  men,  all  men,  must  by 
and  by  come  to  know  it.      It  lies  there  clear,  for  whosoever 
will  take  the  spectacles  off  his  eyes  and  honestly  look,  to 
know  !     For  such  a  man  the  Unbelieving  Century,  with  its 
unblessed    Products,    is   already    past:   a    new    century   is 
;-•  already  come.      The  old  unblessed   Products  and  Perform- 
ances,   as   solid    as  they  look,  are    Phantasms,    preparing 
speedily  to  vanish.      To  this  and  the  other  noisy,  very  great- 
lookinjr  Simulacrum  with  the  whole  world  huzzahing  at  its 
heels,   he  can   say,    composedly  stepi)in,^  aside:    Thou   ail 
not  true;  th ^u  art  not  extant,  only  semblant  ;  go  thy  way  ' 
—  Yes,    hollow   Formulism,   gross  l?enthamism,  and  other 
unheroic  atheistic  Insincerity  is  visibly  and  even  rapidly 
declining.     .\n  unbelieving  F-ighteenth  Century  is  but  an 
excejition,  -     such  as  now   and   then    occurs.      I    prophesy 
30  that  the  world  will  once  more  become  sincere:  a  believin'^ 
world  ;  with   iiiiViy   Heroes  in   it,   a  heroic  world  !      It  will 
then  be  a  victorious  world  ;  never  till  then. 

Or  indeed  what  of  the  world  and  its  victories  '     Men 
speak  too  much  about  the  world.     F.ach  one  of  us  here,  let 


/•///•;  //A7v'(>  ./.-,  M.i.v  i>i-  ijyrrr.h'S 


203 


I 
■J 


,3 

I 

i 


the  world  go  how  it  will,  and  be  victorious  or  not  victori- 
ous, has  he  not  a  Life  f)f  his  own  to  lead  ?  One  Life  ;  a 
little  gleam  of  i'ime  between  two  Kternities  ;  no  second 
chance  to  us  foreverniore  I  It  were  well  for  us  to  live  not 
as  fools  and  simulacra,  but  as  wise  and  realities.  The 
world's  being  saved  will  not  save  us ;  nor  the  world's  being 
lost  destroy  us.  We  should  look  to  ourselves:  there  is 
great  merit  here  in  the  'duty  of  staying  at  home'!  And, 
on  the  whole,  to  say  trutii,  I  never  heard  of  '  worlds  '  being 
'saved  '  in  any  other  way.  That  mania  of  saving  worlds  is  lo 
itself  a  piece  of  the  Kighteenth  Century  with  its  windy  sen- 
timentalism.  Let  us  not  follow  it  too  far.  For  the  saving 
of  the  7iV'/7r/  I  will  trust  confidently  to  the  NLiker  of  the 
world;  and  look  a  little  to  my  own  saving,  which  I  am 
more  comjjetent  to!  In  brief,  for  the  world's  sake,  and 
for  our  own,  we  will  rejoice  greatly  that  Scepticism,  Insin- 
cerity, Mechanical  Atheism,  with  all  their  poison-dews,  are 
going,  and  as  good  as  gone. 

Now   it  was  under  sucii   conditions,    in    those   times   of 
Johnson,  that  our   Men   of   Letters  had  to  live.      Times  in  20 
which  there  was  properly  no  truth  in  life.     Old  truths  had 
fallen  nigh  dumb;  the  new  lay  yet  hidden,  not  trying  to 
speak.      That   Man's   Life  here  below  was  a  Sincerity  and 
l-'act,  and  would  forever  ccjiitinue  such,  no  new  intimation, 
in  that  dusk  of  the  world,  had  yet  dawned.      No  intimation  ; 
not  even  any  I'"rench    Revolution,  — which  we  define  to  be     . 
a  Truth  once  more,  though  a    iruth  clad  in  helltire  I      How 
different  was  the  laither's  pilgrimage,  with  its  assured  goal, 
from   the   Johnson's,'   girt   with    mere  traditions,   sujjposi- 
tions,    grown    now   incredible,    unintelligible  !      Mahomet's  30 
Formulas  were  of  'wood  waxed   and  oiled,'  and  could   be 
/'///7//  out   of    one's   way:    poor   Johnson's   were   far    more 
(lifTicuIt   to  burn. —  The  strouLf   man  will  ever    tind    iiwrk. 


■i    " 


i 


•I 


MwBWH 


h 


Ml'  11-^  l.-hiK-^un's 


' 


204 


r. EC  TURKS  OX  IfKKOES 


which  means  difficulty,  pain,  to  the  full  measure  of  his 
strength.  But  to  make-out '  a  victory,  in  those  circum- 
stances of  our  poor  Hero  as  Man  of  Letters,  was  perhaps 
more  difficult  than  in  any.  Not  obstruction,  disorganisa- 
tion, Bookseller  Osborne  and  Four-pence-halfpenny  a  day  ; 
not  this  alone  ;  but  the  light  of  his  own  soul  was  taken  from 
him.  No  landmark  on  the  Karth ;  and,  alas,  what  is  that 
to  having  no  loadstar  in  the  Heaven !  We  need  not  won- 
der that  none  of  those  Three  men  rose  to  victory.  That 
lo  they  fought  truly  is  the  highest  praise.  With  a  mournful 
sympathy  we  will  contemplate,  if  not  three  living  victori- 
ous Heroes,  as  I  said,  the  Tombs  of  three  fallen  Heroes ! 
They  fell  for  us  too ;  making  a  way  for  us.  There  are  the 
mountains  which  they  hurled  abroad  in  their  confused  War 
of  the  Giants ;  under  which,  their  strength  and  life  spent, 
they  now  lie  buried. 

I  have  already  written  of  these  three  Literary  Heroes, 
expressly  or  incidentally  ;  what  I  suppose  is  known  to  most 
of  you;  what  need  not  be  spoken  or  written  a  second  time. 

20  They  concern  us  here  as  the  singular  J^rophcts  of  that  singular 
age ;  for  such  they  virtually  were  ;  and  the  aspect  they  and 
their  world  exhibit,  under  this  point  of  view,  might  lead  us 
into  reflections-  enough!  I  call  them,  all  three,  Genuine 
Men  more  or  less ;  faithfully,  for  most  part  unconsciously, 
struggling,  to''  be  genuine,  and  plant  themselves  on  the 
everlasting  truth  of  things.  This  to  a  degree  that  emi- 
nently distinguishes  them  from  the  poor  artificial  mass  of 
their  contemporaries ;  and  renders  them  worthy  to  be  con- 
sidered as  Speakers,  in  some  measure,  of  the  everlasting 

30  truth,  as  Prophets  in  that  age  of  theirs.  By  Nature  herself 
a  noble  necessity  was  laid  on  them  to  be  so.     They  were 

1  II'  W  Y\}  make  out  «  H'  H*  reflexions 

*  H'  struggling  to 


THE   IIKRO   AS  MAX  OF  LETTERS 


205 


men  of  such  magnitude  that  they  could  not  live  on  unreal- 
ities, —  clouds,  froth  and  all  inanity  gave-way  '  under  them  : 
there  was  no  footing  for  them  but  on  firm  earth  ;  no  rest 
or  regular  motion  for  them,  if  they  got  not  footing  there. 


the 


1  o  a  certain  extcm,  mey  were  rions  oi  mature  once 
an  age  of  Artitice  ;  once  more,  ( )riginal  Men. 

As  for  Johnson,  I  have  always  considered  him  to  be,  by 

nature,  one  of  our  great  Knglish  souls.  A  strong  and 
noble  man  ;  so  much  left  undeveloped  in  him  to  the  last : 
in  a  kindlier  element  what  might  he  not  have  been,  —  Poet,  ic 

Priest,  sovereign  Kuler  !  On  the  whole,  a  man  must  not 
complain  of  his  'element,'  of  his  'time,'  or  the  like;  it  is 
thriftless  work  doing  so.  His  time  is  bad:  well  then,  he 
is  there  to  make  it  bettei  !  —  Johnson's  youth  was  poor, 
isolated,  hopeless,  very  miserable.  Indeed,  it  does  not 
seem  possible  that,  in  any  the  favourablest  outward  circum- 
stances, Johnson's  life  could  have  been  other  than  a  pain- 
ful one.  The  world  might  have  had  more  of  profitable  ivork 
out  of  him,  or  less  ;  but  his  effort  against  the  world's  work 
could  never  have  been  a  light  one.  Nature,  in  return  for  20 
his  nobleness,  had  said  to  him,  Live  in  an  element  of  dis- 
eased sorrow.  Nay,  perhaps  the  sorrow  and  the  nobleness 
were  intimately  and  even  inseparably  connected  with  each 
other.  At  all  events,  poor  Johnson  had  to  go  about  girt 
with  continual  hypochondria,  physical  and  spiritual  pain. 
Like  a  Hercules  with  the  burning  Nessus'-shirt  on  him, 
which  shoots-in  -  on  him  dull  incurable  misery  :  the  Ncsmis'- 
shirt  not  to  be  stript-olf.'^  which  is  his  own  natural  s'  in  ! 
In  this  manner  he  had  to  live.  iMgure  him  there,  wi  .  his 
scrofulous  diseases,  with  his  great  greedy  heart,  and  un- 
speakable chaos  of  thoughts;  stalking  mournful  as  a 
stranger  in  this   Karth  ;  eagerly  devouring  what   sjjiritual 

»  H'  II-  IIJ  gave  way  -  IP  II-  II '  sli.-ots  in 

»  IP  II-  IPstript  off 


30 


(  ■  r 

'-'.I 


.;  i 


i  I 


\\ 


206 


I.ECrUKHS   0\  HEROES 


v- 


thing  he  could  come  at ;  school-languages  and  other  merely 
grammatical  stuff,  if  there  were  nothing  better!  The  larg- 
est soul  that  was  in  all  Kngland  ;  and  provision  made  for 
it  of  'fourpence-halfpenny  '  a  day.'  Vet  a  giant  invincible 
soul ;  a  true  man's.  <  )ne  remembers  always  that  story  of 
the  shoes  at  Oxford:  the  rough,  seamy-faced,  rawboned 
College  Servitor  stalking  about,  in  winter-season,  with  his 
shoes  worn-out  - ;  how  the  charitable  (lentleman  ( 'ommoner 
secretly  places  a  new  pair  at  his  door  ;   and  the  raw  boned 

10  Servitor,  lifting  them,  looking  at  liiem  near,  with  dim  eyes, 
with  what  thoughts,  —  pitches  them  out  of  window  !  Wet 
feet,  mud,  frost,  hunger  or  what  you  will:  but  not  beggary: 
we  cannot  stand  beggary  !  Rude  stubborn  self-help  here  ; 
a  whole  world  of  scjualor,  rudeness,  confused  misery  and 
want,  yet  of  nobleness  and  manfulness  withal.  It  is  a  type 
of  the  man's  life,  this  pitching-away "  of  the  shoes.  An 
original  man  ;  —  not  a  secondhand,  borrowing  or  begging 
man.  Let  us  stand  on  our  own  basis,  at  any  rate  !  On  such 
shoes  as  we  ourselves  can  get.     On  frost  and  nmd,  if  you 

20  will,  but  hf)ncstlv  on  tiiat;  on  the  rcalitv  and  substance 
which  Nature  gives  //>,  not  on  the  semblance,  on  the  tiling 
she  has  given  another  than  us  I 

iVnd  yet  with  all  this  rugged  ])ride  of  maniiood  and  self- 
help,  was  there  ever  soul  more  tenderly  affectionate,  loyally 
submissive  to  what  was  reallv  hij^her  than  he  ?  (Ireat  souls 
are  always  loyally  submissive,  reverent  to  what  is  over 
them;  only  small  mean  souls  are  otherwise.  I  could  not 
find  a  better  proof  of  what  I  said  the  other  day,  That  \.\\v 
sincere  man  was  by  nature  the  obedient  man  ;   that  only  in 

30  a  World  of  Heroes  was  there  loyal'Obedience  to  the  Heroic. 
The  essence  of  orii^iiutlity  is  not  that  it  be  iic-u< :  Johnson 
believed  altogether  in  the  old  ;   he  found  the  old  opinions 

'  H'  11- fourpence  lialfi)enny  -  II'  IP  H '  \vf)rn  out 

'  11'  11-  W  pitrhing  ,T\v;iy 


Til/:    llhKO    AS   MAX   Of   IJ:ni:KS 


credible  for  him,  fit  for  him  ;  aiul  in  a  ri^ht  licroic  manner 
lived  under  tiicm.  He  is  well  wortli  study  in  rt.'L;ard  to 
that.  1  or  we  are  to  say  that  johnNon  was  far  other  tiian  a 
mere  man  of  words  anil  formulas;  lie  was  a  man  of  truths 
and  facts.  He  stood  liy  the  old  formulas:  tl)e  liipjiier 
was  it  for  him  that  he  could  so  stand  ;  hut  in  ail  formulas 
that  //(•  could  stand  hy.  there  needed  to  he  a  most  j;enuine 
substance.  Very  curious  how,  in  that  poor  {'ajier-aLje,  so 
barren,  artificial,  thick-(]uille(l  \\ith  Pedantries,  Hearsays, 
the  great  l-'act  of  tliis  I'niverse  glared  '  in,  forever  '  wonder-  lo 
ful,  induliitable,  unspeakable,  divine-infernal,  upon  this 
man  too!  How  he  harmonised  his  formulas  with  it.  how 
he  managed  at  all  under  sucii  circumstances :  that  is  a  thin.; 
worth  seein;;.  A  tiling  't«j  be  looked  at  with  reverence, 
with  pity,  with  awe.'  i'hat  (hurch  of  St.  (lenient  Danes, 
where  Johnson  still  7i',>rs/i/f<p,;f  \\\  tlie  era  of  X'oltaire,  is  to 
me  a  venerable  place. 

It  was  in  virtue  of  his  snirrrify.  uf  his  s|)eaking  still  in 
some  sort  from  the  heart  of  N.iiure,  liiougii  in  tlie  current 
artificial  dialect,  that  Johnson  was  a  rrophet.  Are  not  ill  jo 
dialects  'artificial'?  Arlilicial  things  aie  not  all  fa!>e  ; 
nay  every  true  I'roduct  of  .Nature  will  inf.il!il)ly  i/v//.  itself; 
we  may  say  all  artificial  things  are.  at  tin;  starting  of  tlii;iii, 
tnir.  What  we  call  '  i''ormuias  '  are  not  in  tiieir  origin  b.id  ; 
they  are  indispensably  good.  I'ormula  is  n'cth^hl,  liabitude  ; 
found  wherever  man  is  found,  formulas  fashion  them- 
selves as  i'aths  do,  as  beaten  Highways,  leading  towards 
some  sacred  or  higii  object,  whitlier  many  men  .ire  bent. 
Consider  it.  One  man,  ful!  of  heartfelt  earnest  iuipi:'  ■ 
finds-out  ^  a  way  of  doingsomewli.it,        were  it  of  uttei  jC 

his  soul's   reverence    for    tiie    Highest,  were   it   but  of   titiy 
saluting  his  fellow-man.      .\n    inventor   was  needed  to  do 


Id  , 


LI?     H 

n  ^ 


that, 


■/•' 


■   I,.. 


has  articulated   tiie  dim-struggling  timught 


'  '  II'  H-  H- "larcilin  forever 


-  II'  !!-■  iP  tiiul.-  <.ut 


2US 


LECTURES   ON  HEROES 


f 


i\ 


li 


that  dwelt  in  his  own  and  many  hearts.  This  is  his  way 
of  doing  that ;  these  are  his  footsteps,  the  beginning  of  a 
•  Path.'  And  now  see  :  the  second  man  travels  naturally  in 
the  footsteps  of  his  foregoer,  it  is  the  cusicst  meti.  ;d.  In  the 
footsteps  of  his  foregoer;  yet  with  unprovements,  with' 
changes  where  such  seem  good  ;  at  all  events  with  enlarge- 
ments, the  Path  ever  7t7V<7//>/:,' itself  as  more  travel  it ;  - 
till  at  last  there  is  a  broad  Highway  whereon  the  whole 
world  may  travel  and  drive.     While  there  remains  a  k  itv 

10  or  Shrine,  or  any  Reality  to  drive  to,  at  the  farther  encl, 
the  Highway  shall  be  right  welcome!  When  the  City  is 
gone,  we  will  forsake  the  Highway.  In  this  manner  all 
Institutions,  Practices,  Regulated  Things  in  the  world  have 
come  into  existence,  and  gone  out  of  existence.  Formulas 
all  begin  by  being  /////  of  substance ;  you  may  call  them 
the  skin,  the  articulation  into  shape,  into  limbs  nnd  skin,  of 
a  substance  that  is  already  there :  tiny  had  not  been  there 
otherwise.  Idols,  as  we  said,  are  not  idolatrous  till  they 
become  doubtful,  empty  for  the  worshii)iier's  heart.      Much 

20  as  we  talk  against  I'ormulas,  I  hope  no  one  of  us  is  ignorant 
withal  of  the  high  significance  of  true  l-ormulas  ;  that  thcv 
were,  and  will  ever  be,  the  indispensablest  furniture  of  our 

habitation  in  this  world. 

Mark,  too,  how  little  Johnson  boasts  of  his  'sincerity." 
He  has  no  suspicion  of  his  being  particularly  sincere,  —  of 
his  being  particularly  anything  !  A  hard-struggling,  weary- 
hviarted  man,  or  'scholar'  as  he  calls  himself,  trying  hard 
to  get  some  honest  livelihood  in  the  world,  not  to  starve, 
but  to  live  — without  stealing!     A  noble  unconsciousness 

30  is  in  him.  He  does  not  'engrave  Truth  on  his  watch-seal  ;  ' 
no,  but  he  stands  by  truth,  speaks  by  it,  works  and  lives 
by  it.  Thus  it  ever  is.  Think  of  it  once  more.  The  man 
whom  Nature  has  appointetl  to  do  great  things  is,  lirst  of 

1  no!  ill  1 1 ' 


THE   l/ENO  AS  MAX  Ol-    I.ETT/:h'S 


IW 


all,  fiirnishcd  with  that  opcnnc-ss  to  Nature  which  rondcrs 
him  inc:ipal)lc  of  i)i;in^'  ///sincere !  i'o  his  lar^'c,  open, 
deep-feel inj;  heart  Nature  is  a  laci:  ai!  hearsay  is  hear- 
say; tile  unspeakable  {,nc.aiiess  (it  this  Mystery  of  Life,  let 
him  acknowledge  it  or  not,  nay  even  thou;^h  he  stem  to 
forget  it  or  deny  it,  is  ever  present  to  //////,  fearful  and 
wonderful,  o.i  this  hand  and  on  that.  He  has  a  basis  of 
sincerity  ;  unrecoj;nised,  because  never  questioned  or  capa- 
ble of  question.  Mirabe.ui,  Mahomet,  (  roniwell,  Napoleon  : 
all  the  (;reat  Men  I  ever  heard-of '  have  this  as  t  le  primary  lo 
material  of  them.  Innumerable  commonplace  men  are 
debating,  are  talkin-j;  everywhere  their  commoniilace  doc- 
trines, which  they  have  learned  by  loi;ic,  by  rote,  at  sec- 
ondhand -':  to  that  kind  of  man  all  this  is  still  nothing;,  lb- 
must  have  truth  ;  truth  which  //,•  feels  to  be  true.  How- 
shall  he  stand  otherwise  .'  His  whole  soul,  at  all  moments, 
in  all  ways,  tells  him  that  there  is  no  standing.  He  is  under 
the  noble  necessity  of  being  true,  (ohnson's  way  of  think- 
ing about  this  world  is  not  mine,  any  more  tlian  Mahomet's 
was:  but  I  recognise  the  everlasting  element  of  heart-  ::o 
siiurrity  in  both  ;  and  see  with  pleasure  Ikav  neitiier  of  them 
remains  ineffectual.  Neither  of  tliem  is  as  (//,///' sown  ;  in 
both  of  them  is  something  wiiiili  the  seed-tield  will  ,;vv/,-i'. 

Johnson  was  a  Prophet  to  his  people;  jireached  aClospel 
to  them,  -as  all  like  him  always  do.  The  highest  Oospel 
he  preached  we  may  describe  as  a  kind  of  Moral  I'rudence  ; 
'in  a  world  where  much  is  to  be  done,  and  little  is  to  be 
known,'  see  how  you  will  ,//-  it  :  A  tiling  well  worth  ])reach- 
ing.  'A  world  where  much  is  to  be  clone,  and  little  is  to 
be  known  :  '  do  not  sink  yourselves  in  boundless  bottomless  30 
abysses  of  Doubt,  of  wretched  god-forgetting'  I  nl)eiief; 
—  you  were  miserable  then,  powerless,  ni  ul  ;   h'nv  could  vou 

»  H'  H-  II'  heard  of  -  IP  .SLcmd-Iiam! 


1 

' 

1-^ 

, 

A 

li  ■'  1 


:!ih! 


210 


/./■:c7'i'h'f-:.s  ox  iiiiNoi-.s 


\ 


do  or  work  at  all  ?  Such  (lospol  [olinson  prciclied  and 
taight ;-- coupled,  theoretically  and  practically,  with  this 
other  great  (lospcl,  '  (  lear  your  mind  ol  (ant  !  '  Have  no 
tra  with  Cant:  stand  on  the  cold  mud  in  th.  frosty 
weather,  but  let  it  be  in  your  own  iwil  torn  shoes:  'that 
will  bt  bjtter  for  vou,'  as  Mahomet  savs  !  I  call  this,  I 
call  these  two  thinj^s  joiiUii  to^,tlui\  a  great  (lospel,  the 
greatest  perhaps  that  was  possible  at  that  time. 

Johnson's  Writings,  which  once   had  such  currency  and 

10  celebrity,  are  now,  as  it  were,'  disowned  by  the  yoimg 
generation.  It  is  not  wonderful  ;  Johnson's  opinions  are 
fast  becoming  obsolete  :  but  his  style  of  thinking  and  of 
living,  we  may  hope,  will  never  become  obsolete.  I  lind  in 
Johnson's  IJooks  the  indisputablest  traces  of  ,i  great  intel- 
lect and  a  great  heart ;  e\'.'r  welcome,  under  what  obstruc- 
tions and  perversions  soever.  They  are  sin,;  ■  •  words,  those 
of  his;  he  means  things  by  them.  A  wondrous  buckram 
style,  —the  best  he  could  get  to  then  :  a  measured  grandilo- 
quence, stejiping  or  rather  stalking  along  in  a  very  solemn 

2D  way,  grown  obsolete  now;  sometimes  a  tumid  size  of 
phraseology  not  in  proportion  to  the  cf)ntents  of  it:  all  this 
you  will  put-up-  with.  I'or  the  pjiraseoloi^y,  tumid  or  not, 
has  always  soimt/iiiii'  iK'itliin  it.  S(j  manv  beautiful  slvUs 
and  books,  with  not/tin,:;  in  them  ;  —  a  man  is  a  w.//.  factor  to 
the  world  who  writes  such  !  'J'/irv  are  the  avoidable  kind  I 
—  Had  Johnson  left  nothing  but  his  /)ii/ii>ii,tr\\,  one  might 
have  traced  there  a  great  intellect,  a  getiuinc  m.m.  I-ook 
ing  to  its  clearness  of  detinitifiu,  its  general  solidity,  honesty, 
insight  and  successful  method,  it  may  be  called  the  !>est  of 

30  all  Dictionaries.  There  is  in  it  a  kind  of  ar-jliitectural 
nobleness;  it  stands  there  like  a  great  solid  stjuare-built 
edifice,  finished,  symmetrically  complete  :  you  judge  that  a 
true  Builder  did  it. 


1  li'  11=  IPweic 


-  U'll-  irjmt  up 


rur.    II I: NO    AS    MAX   Ol-    /./.Jn-.h'S 


!11 


One  word,  in  spite  of  our  haste,  must  be  t;r.inte«l  to  poor 
Bozzy.  He  passes  for  a  mean,  intiated.jjluttonoiis  creature; 
and  was  so  in  many  senses.  \  et  the  fact  of  his  reverence 
for  Johnson  will  ever  remain  noteworthy.  The  foolisli  con- 
ceited .Scotch  Laird,  the  most  conceited  man  of  his  time, 
approaciiinj;  in  such  awestruck  attitude  tlie  <;reat  (histy 
irascible  redagof^ue  in  his  mean  {garret  there  :  it  is  a  j;enuine 
reverence  for  Kxcelience  :  a  7t.u>rs/iip  for  Heroes,  at  a  tinie 
when  neither  Heroes  nor  worship  were  surmised  to  exist. 
Heroes,  it  would  seem,  exist  always,  and  a  certain  worship  lo 
of  them  !  We  will  also  take  the  liberty  to  deny  altoj;ether 
that  of  the  witty  Frenchman,  that  no  man  is  a  Hero  to  his 
valet-de-chambre.  Or  if  .so,  it  is  not  the  Hero's  blauje,  but 
the  N'alet's  :  that  his  soul,  namely,  is  a  mean  ;v/(/-soul  I 
He  expects  his  Hero  to  advance  in  royal  staj^e-trappin^^s, 
with  measured  step,  trains  borne  behind  hin>,  trumi)ets 
soundin<{  before  him.  It  should  stand  rather.  No  man  can 
be  a  (iriin,/-.\/))Hitrt/itr  to  his  valet-de-chambre.  .Strip  your 
Louis  (Juatorze  of  his  kin^-f;ear,  and  there  la  left  nothinij; 
but  a  poor  forked  raddish  '  witii  a  head  fantastically  carved  ;  20 
—  admirable  to  no  valet.  The  \'alet  does  not  know  a  Hero 
when  he  sees  him  !  Alas,  no  :  it  requires  a  kind  of  J/,  >  >  to 
do  tiiat ;  —  anfl  one  of  the  world's  wants,  in  ////>  as  in  otiier 
senses,  is  for  most  part  want  of  such. 

(^n  the  whole,  shall  we  not  say,  that  Jioswell's  admiration 
was  well  bestowed;  that  he  could  have  found  no  soul  in  all 
Knj^land  so  worthy  of  bendinj;  Jiown  before  ?  Sliall  we  not 
say,  of  this  j^reat  mournful  Johnson  too,  that  he  f:;ui<led  his 
dilTicult  confused  existence  wisely  ;  led  it  7i>c//,  like  a  rij^ht- 
valiant  -  man  .'  That  waste  chaos  of  .\uthorshi])  by  trade  '' :  30 
that  waste  chaos  of  Scepticism  in  religion  and  politics,  in 
life-theory  and  life-practice  :  i  1  his  ]Joverty,  in  \n^  dust  and 

MP  n=  11'r.vli.h  2  H«  H=  II' right  valiant 

•'  IP  IP  IP  Trade 


I       v| 


•r  ii 


{e 


^i 


•r 


1 


212 


LKCn'Rl.S  ox  IllKOES 


dimness,  with  the  sick  body  ;ind  the  rusty  co.it :  he  made 
it  do  for  him,  like  \  brave  man.  Not  wholly  without  a 
loadstar  in  the  Kternal  ;  he  had  still  a  loadstar,  as  the 
brave  all  need  to  have :  with  his  eye  set  on  that,  he  would 
rhanye  his  course  for  nothinj;  in  these  confused  v«)rtices  of 
the  lower  sea  of  Time.  'To  the  Spirit  of  Lies,  bearinj"; 
death  and  hunger,  he  would  in  no  wise  strike  his  flag.' 
Hravc  old  Samuel :  ultitnus  Ronuiiiorum  .' 


Ok'  Rousseau  and  his  Heroism  I  cannot  say  so  much.  He 
10  is  not  what  I  call  a  strong  man.  A  morbid,  excitable,  spas- 
modic man  ;  at  best,  intense  rather  than  strong.  He  had 
not  'the  talent  of  Silence,'  an  invaluable  talent  ;  which  few 
Frenchmen,  or  indeed  men  of  any  sort  in  these  times,  excel 
in  !  The  suffering  man  ought  really  'to  consume  his  own 
smoke ; '  there  is  no  good  in  emitting  sniolu'  till  you  have 
made  it  into  //"/v,  —  which,  in  the  metaphorical  sense  too, 
all  smoke  is  capable  of  becoming  !  Rousseau  has  not  deptii 
or  width,  not  calm  force  for  difficulty  ;  the  first  character 
istic  of  true  greatness.  A  fundamental  mistake  to  call 
20  vehemence  and  rigidity  strength  !  A  man  is  not  strong 
who  takes  convulsion-fits  ;  though  six  men  cannot  hold  him 
then.  He  that  can  walk  under  the  heaviest  weight  with- 
out staggering,  he  is  the  strong  man.  \V<,'  need  forever, 
especially  in  these  loud-shrieking  days,  to  remind  ourselves 
of  that.  A  man  who  cannot  /lo/ii  /ih  ptutir,  till  the  time  conu- 
for  speaking  and  acting,  is  no  right  man. 

I'oor  Rousseau's  face  is  to  me  expressive  of  him.  A  higli 
but  narrow  contracted  intensity  in  it :  bony  brows ;  deep, 
strait-s2t  eyes,  in  which  there  is  something  bewildered 
Z°  looking, — bewildered,  peering  with  lynx-eagerness.  A  fact- 
full  of  miserv.  even  isrnoble  miserv.  and  also  of  the  antago- 
nism  against  that ;  something  mean,  plebeian  there,  re 
deemed    only  by   intciisily :    the   face   of    what   is  calletl  a 


THE   rh.RO   AS  MAX  Ol-    I ETTEKS 


21.) 


Fanatic,  a  sadly  lontntiUi/  lleio!  \\u  n.iiiu-  hint  here 
because',  witli  all  his  dr  iwhacks,  and  thi  y  arc  lu.my,  he 
has  the  ftrst  and  chief  characteristic  dI  a  Hero:  he  is 
heartily  in  eaiiust.  In  earnest,  if  ever  man  was;  as  none 
of  these  French  Phijosophes  were.  Nay,  one  would  say, 
of  an  earnestness  nio  ^'reat  for  his  otherwise  sensitive, 
rather  feeble  natine;  and  which  indeed  in  tii«  nA  drove 
him  into  the  stranyest  inc(»iierencL .,  almost  delirations. 
I'here  had  come,  at  last,  to  be  a  kind  of  madness  in  iiim: 
his  I deas /*MX<xv(v/  him  like  demons;  hurried  him  so  about,  lo 
drove  him  over  steep  places  ! 

The  fault  and  misery  of  Rousseau  was  what  we  easily 
name  by  a  single  word,  J-.^oism  ;  which  is  indeed  the  source 
and  summary  of  all  faults  and  miseries  whatsoever.  He 
had  not  perfected  himself  into  victory  over  mere  Desire;  a 
I  lean  Hunger,  in  many  sorts,  was  still  the  motive  principle 
of  him.  I  am  afraid  he  was  a  very  vain  man  ;  hungry  for 
the  praises  of  men.  Vou  remember  (]enlis\  experience  of 
him.  She  took  Jean  Jacques  to  the  Iheatre ;  he  bargain- 
ing for  a  strict  incognito,  "  lie  would  not  be  seen  there  -'o 
for  the  world  !  "  The  curtain  did  hajjpen  nevertheless  to 
be  drawn  aside:  the  Pit  recognised  Jean  Jacques,  but  took 
no  great  notice  of  him  !  He  expressed  the  bitterest  indig- 
nation; gloomed  all  evening,  sjiake  no  other  than  surly 
words.  The  glib  Countess  remained  entirely  convinced 
that  his  anger  was  not  at  being  seen,  but  at  not  being 
applauded  when  seen.  How  the  whole  nature  of  the  man 
is  poisoned ;  nothing  but  suspicion,  self-isolation,  tierce 
moody  ways  !  He  could  not  live  with  anybody.  A  man 
of  some  rank  from  the  country,  who  visited  him  often,  and  30 
used  to  sit  with  him,  expressing  all  reverence  and  affection 
for  him,  comes  one  day,  finds  Jean  Jacques  full  of  the 
sourest  unintelligible  humour.  "Monsieur,"  said  Jean 
Jacques,  with  flaming  eyes.  "  I   know  why  you  come  here. 


If" 


'■•I     .  . 

'I  =« 


214 


/.ficrvh'^:s  i»\  ni:Kois 


You  come  to  Hcc  whiit  a  poor  life  I  le;ul ;  how  little  is  in 
my  |MM)r  |K)t  that  is  l>oilinj(  there.  Well,  look  in«o  tl"  pot  ' 
There  is  hiilf  a  p(»un(l  o(  meat,  one  carrot  and  three  onions  ; 
th.1t  is  all;  jj(»  and  tell  the  whole  worUI  that,  if  you  like, 
Monsieur!"  A  man  of  this  stirt  was  far  ;^one.  The 
whole  world  j,'ot  itself  supplied  with  anecdotes,  for  light 
laughter,  for  a  certain  theatrical  interest,  fr«m)  these  per- 
versions and  contortions  of  |M)or  Jean  Jactpies.  Alas,  to 
him  they  were  not  laughing  or  tlu;atrical ;  too  real  to  him  ! 

10  The  contortions  of  a  dying  gladiator:  the  crowded  am|)hi- 
theatre  looks-on  '  with  entertainment  ;  but  the  gladiator  is 
in  agonies  and  dying. 

.\nd  yet  this  Umisseau,  as  we  -iay,  with  his  passionate 
apix'als  to  Mothers,  with  his  Contr,tt-siniii/,  with  his  celebra- 
tions of  Nature,  even  of  savage  life  in  Nature,  did  once 
more  touch  upon  Reality,  struggle  towards  Reality;  was 
doing  the  function  of  a  I'rophet  to  his  Time.  As  /i.  „ould, 
and  as  the  I'ime  cmild  !  Strangely  through  a'.i  that  deface- 
ment, degratlation    and  almost    madness,  there  is  in    the 

20  inmost  heart  of  poor  Kousseau  a  spark  of  real  heavenly 
tire.  \  Once  more,  out  of  tin-  element  i>'  hat  withered  mock 
ing  I'hilosophism,  Scepticism  and  rersillage,  there  has 
arisen  in  this  man  the  ineradical)lc  feeling  and  knowletlgc 
that  this  Life  of  ours  is  triif :  not  a  Scepticism,  I'heorem, 
or  I'ersillage,  but  a  I'act,  an  awfii!  Reality.  Nature  had 
made  that  revelation  to  him  :  had  ordered  liim  to  speak  it 
out.  He  got  it  spoken  out  ;  if  not  ncll  and  clearly,  then 
ill  and  diml\,  —  as  clearly  as  he  could.  Nay  what  are  all 
errors  and  perversities  of  his,  even  those  stealings  of  rib- 

30  bons,  aimless  confused  miseries  and  vagabondisms,  if  we 
will  interpret  them  kindly,  but  the  blinkard  dazzlement 
and  stagger;  igs  to  ar'  iro  of  a  man  sent  on  an  errand  he 
is  too  weak  for,  by  a  path  he  cannot  yet  find  .'     Men  are 

'  H'  II'  IPloukson 


rill:    III  hO    AS     M.I.X     <ll-    I.I:  II  IAS 


21  < 


li-(l  hv  Strang;*'  w.iys.  '  »Mf  sinnild  line  tolerance  f«)r  ;i  man, 
|ji»|>e  of  him;  Ic.ivf  hiiii  to  try  yi-l  wli.it  In-  ssill  <l<».  While 
life  Lists  hope  last-,  for  every  mill. 

Of  K(ni>se.ur«.  liter.iry  t.iUnts.  ;;re.itly  telel»r;ite(l  still 
.iiiioii^  his  eountrymeii,  I  <io  imt  s.iy  iiiiuli.  His  Itooks, 
like  himself,  .ire  wii.it  I  <  .ill  unhealthy  ;  not  the  ;;iio(l  sort 
of  hooks.  There  is  a  seiisuility  in  Rousseau.  (  oinhined 
with  Mu:h  an  inteileclu.ii  ;iilt  is  his,  it  m.ikes  pietures  of  a 
certain  ^orj;eous  attr.ietivenes^  :  hut  they  are  not  jjemiincly 
poetiial.  Not  wh.ile  sunli;4ht  :  soinethinji  ,>/>,>;///,■;  a  kind  m 
of  rosepink,  artitiri.ii  i)eili/  iinient.  It  i-  fretjuent,  or  rather 
it  i-.  universal,  inioii,  the  I  rem  h  ^iiui-  his  time.  .Madame 
de  Stael  has  siimclhin;;  of  it  ;  .st.  Pierre  ;  and  down  onwards 
to  tile  present  isloiiishin.;  eonviilsionary  'Literature  of 
I  )esi)erati<»n.'  it  is  everywhere  ahund.mt.  I  h.it  s.ime/vMc 
yi////'  is  not  the  riLjlit  hue.  Look  at  a  Sh.iksjje.ire,  at  a 
(loethe,  even  ,il  a  W. liter  Seoti  !  lie  who  h.is  onee  seen 
into  this,  has  seen  the  diliereme  of  the  True  from  the 
.Sham-  True,  and  will  iliscrimin.ite  them  ever  aflerw.irds. 

We  had  to  observe  in  lolin.soii  how  nnuliLjood.i  i'rophet,  -o 
under  all  dis.ulv mlaiies  .uid  «li>or;Mnii,iti(»iis.  e.in  accom- 
plish for  the  world.  In  Kousseau  wi-  .ue  i.illed  to  look 
r.ither  at  the  fearful  .imount  ol  evil  ■  '  iili,  under  siu  h  dis- 
orL;  inis.ition,  ni.iv  .uidmp.inv  tlu'  ;:;iiod.  Historically  it  is 
a  most  pre^nanl  spectacl--,  ihu  of  Rousse.ui.  lianished 
into  Paris  ^^arrets,  in  the  ;;Ioomy  coininny  of  his  own 
Thoui^dUs  and  N—essities  there :  driven  from  post  to 
l)il!ar;  fretted,  exasperated  till  the  heart  of  him  went 
mad,  he  had  ;xrowii  to  feel  deeply  that  the  world  was  not 
his  friend  nf>r  the  world's  law.  It  was  e.\pedient.  if  anyway'  3° 
possible,  that  such  a  man  should  //  /  hive  been  set  in  flat 
hostilitv  with  t!u;  world.  He  could  be  cooped  into  . garrets, 
lau;.;hed  at  as  a  maniac,  left  to  starve  like  a  wilil-beast-  in 
1  11"  II-  ll'anv  WHV  -•  II'  II     ir  wild  l>c.ist 


fl 


K.i> 


^'  .\ 


2K 


l.KCTVKl:<;  OX  IlEROhS 


his  cage;  but  he  could  not  he  hindered  from  setting  the 
world  on  lire.  I'he  French  Revolution  found  its  Kvangel- 
ist  in  Rousseau.  If  is  semi-delirious  speculations  on  the 
miseries  of  civilised  life,  the  prcferahility  of  the  savage  to 
the  civilised,  and  suchlike,'  helped  wcl!  to  produce  a  whole 
delirium  in  France  generally.  Irue,  you  m.iy  well  ask. 
What  could  the  world,  the  governors  of  the  world,  do  with 
such  a  man.'  Difficult  to  say  what  the  governors  of  the 
world  could  do  with  him  !  What  he  could  do  with  them  is 
10  unhappily  clear  enough,  ~,i;uillotin,-  a  great  many  of  them  ! 
Enough  row  of  Rousseau. 


fr 


l\ 


w- 


It  was  a  curious  phenomenon,  in  the  withered,  unbelieving, 
secondhand  Eighteenth  Century,  that  of  a  Ifero  starting 
up,  among  the  artificial  pasteboard  figures  and  productions, 
in  the  guise  of  a  Robert  iiurns.  Eike  a  little  well  in  the 
rocky  desert  places,  — like  a  sudden  splendour  of  Heaven 
in  the  artificial  Vauxhall  !  I'eojjle  knew  not  what  to  make 
of  it.  They  took  it  for  a  piece  of  the  Vauxhall  fire-work  ; 
alas,    it    /<•/   itself    be    so    taken,    though    struggling    half- 

20  blindly,  as  in  bitterness  of  death,  against  that !  Perhaps 
no  man  had  such  a  false  reception  from  his  fellow-men. 
Once  more  a  very  wasteful  life-drama  was  enacted  under 
the  sun. 

'i'he  tragedy  of  liurns's  life  is  known  to  all  of  you. 
Surely  we  may  say,  if  discrepancy  between  place  held  and 
])lace  merited  constitute  perverseness  of  lot  for  a  man  lo 
lot  could  be  more  perverse  than  Ikirns's.  Among  those 
secondhand  acting-figures,  fnimcs  for  most  part,  of  the 
Eighteenth  Century,  once  more  a  giant  Original  Man  ;  one 

3"  of  those  men  who  reacii  down  to  the  i  erennial  iJeeps,  who 
take  rank  with  the  Heroic  among  men:   and  he   was  born 
in  a  poor  Ayrshire  hut.      ['he  largest  soul  of  all  the  British 
1  IP  \V  IP  such  like 


rilK   IIKKO   AS   MAX  (>/■■  LETT/IRS 


lYl 


-■;« 


lands  c.iine  among  us  in  the  shape  of  a  hard-handed  Scot- 
tish I'easant.' 

His  I'atiier,  a  poor  toilinjf  man,  tried  various  things;  did 
not  succeetl  in  any  ;  was  involved  in  continual  difficulties, 
'i'he  Stewartl,  lactor  as  the  Scotch  call  him,  used  to  send 
letters  and  threatenings,  Uurns  says,  'wiiich  threw  us  all 
into  tears.'  Ihe  brave,  hard-toiling,  hard-suffering  Father, 
his  brave  heroine  of  a  wife  ;  and  those  children,  of  whom 
Robert  was  one!  In  this  Karih,  so  wide  otherwise,  no 
shelter  for  ///,;;/.  The  letters  '  threw  us  all  into  tears  : '  tigure  lo 
it.  i'he  brave  Father,  I  sav  alwavs;  —  a  sihiit  Hero  and 
Poet ;  without  whom  the  son  had  never  been  a  speaking 
one  !  liurns's  Schoolmaster  caine  afterwards  to  London, 
learnt  what  good  society  was ;  but  declares  that  in  no 
meeting  of  men  did  he  ever  enjoy  better  disccnuse  than  at 
the  hearth  of  this  peasant.  And  his  poor  'seven  acres 
of  nursery-ground,'  —  not  ^  that,-  nor  the  miserable  patch 
of  clay-farm,  nor  anything  he  tried  to  get  a  living  by,  would 
pr(jsper  with  him  ;  he  had  a  sore  unecjual  battle  all  his 
days.  Hut  he  stood  to  it  valiantly  ;  a  wise,  faithful,  uncon-  20 
(juerable  man  ;  -  swallowing-down  '  how  many  sore  suffer- 
ings daily  into  silence  ;  lighting  like  an  unseen  Hero,  — 
nobody  publishing  newspaper  paragraphs*  about  his  noble- 
ness ;  voting  pieces  of  plate  to  him  !  However,  he  was  not 
lost :  nothing  is  lost.  Robert  is  there ;  the  outcome  of 
him,     -and  indeed  of  many  generations  of  such  as  him. 

This  Uurns  appeared  under  every  disadvantage:  unin- 
structed,  poor,  born  only  to  hard  manual  toil ;  and  writing, 
when  it  came  to  that,  in  a  rustic  special  dialect,  known 
only  to  a  small  province  of  tiie  country  he  lived  in.  Had  30 
he  written,  even  what  he  did  write,  in  the  general  language 
of  England,  1  doubt  not  he  had  already  become  universally 


^  m> /•iira;^raf'h  in  H'  IP  IP 
"'■^„ot  h,  11' 


•'  IP  IP  IP  swallowing  flown 

*  II'  IP  IP  ncwspaiK'r-paiagraphs 


Pi 


f-\     H 


'V 


li 

ii 


21S 


LECTURES   OX  HEROES 


recognised  as  bein^,  or  capable  to  be,  one  of  our  greatest 
men.  That  he  should  have  tempted  so  many  to  penetrate 
through  the  rough  husk  of  that  dialect  of  his,  is  proof  that 
there  lay  something  far  from  common  within  it.  He  has 
gained  a  certain  recognition,  and  is  continuing  to  do  so 
over  all  quarters  of  our  wide  Saxon  world  :  wheresoever  a 
Saxon  dialect  is  spoken,  it  begins  to  be  understood,  by 
personal  inspection  of  this  and  the  other,  that  one  of  the 
most  considerable  Saxon   men  of  the   Eighteenth   century 

10  was  an  Ayrshire  Peasant  named  Robert  liurns.  Yes,  1 
will  say,  here  too  was  a  piece  of  the  right  Saxon  stuff : 
strong  as  the  Harz-rock,  rooted  in  the  depths  of  the  world  ; 
—  rock,  yet  with  wells  of  living  softness  in  it!  A  wild 
impetuous  whirlwind  of  passion  and  faculty  slumbered 
quiet  there ;  such  heavenly  melody  dwelling  in  the  heart  of 
it.  ^  A  noble  rough  genuineness  ;  homely,  rustic,  hunest ; 
true  simplicity  of  strength  ;  with  its  lightning-fire,  with  its 
soft  dewy  pity;  —  like  the  old  \orse  Thor,  the  Peasant- 
god!— 

20  Burns's  Brother  Gilbert,  a  man  of  much  sense  and  worth, 
has  told  me  that  Robert,  in  his  young  days,  in  spite  of 
tlu  ir  hardship,  was  usually  the  gayest  of  speech;  a  fellow 
of  infinite  frolic,  laughter,  sense  and  heart ;  far  pleasanter 
to  hear  there,  stript  cutting  peats  in  tlie  bog,  or  suchlike,' 
than  he  ever  afterwards  knew  him.  I  can  well  believe  it. 
This  basis  of  mirth  {'fond  g,Ti//an/,'  as  old  Marquis  Mira- 
beau  calls  it),  a  primal-element  of  sunshine  and  joyfulness, 
coupled  with  his  other  deep  and  earnest  qualities,  is  one  of 
the  most  attractive  characteristics  of  Ikirns.     A  larse  fund 

30  of  Hope  dwells  in  him  ;  spite  of  his  tragical  history,  he  is 
not  a  mourning  man.  He  shakes  his  sorrows  gallantly 
aside;  bounds  forth  victorious  over  them.  It  is  as  the 
lion   shaking   'dew-drops   from    his   mane;'    as   the   swift 

UI'  IF  I  P. such  like 


THE  HERO   AS  MAX  ()/■    LETTERS 


219 


\ 


bounding  horse,  that  laughs  at  the  shaking  of  the  spear.  ~ 
But  indeed,  Hope,  Mirth,  of  the  sort  like  Rurns's,  are  they 
not  the  outcome  properly  of  warm  generous  affection,  — 
such  as  is  the  beginning  of  all  to  every  man  ? 

You  would  think  it  strange  if  I   called   Hums  the  most 
gifted  British  soul  we  had  in  all  that  century  of  his :   and 
yet  I  believe  the  day  is  coming  when  there  will  be  little 
danger  in  saying  so.      His  writings,  all  that  he  ,iiJ  under 
such  obstructions,  are  only  a  poor  fragment  of  him.      Pro- 
fessor Stewart  remarked  very  justly,  what  indeed  is  true  lo 
of  ai;  Poets  good  for  m.uoh,  that  his  poetry  was  nut  any 
particular  faculty ;    but   the   general  result  of  a  naturally 
vigorous   original    mind    expres„.ng    itself    in    that    way. 
Burns's  gifts,  expressed  in  conversation,  are  the  theme  of 
all   that  ever   heard   him.     All   kinds  of   gifts:    from   the 
gracefulest  ^  utterances  of  courtesy,  to  the  highest  tire  of 
passionate  speech  ;    loud  floods  of  mirth,  soft  wailings  of 
affection,  laconic  emphasis,  clear  piercing  insight ;  all  was 
in  him.     Witty  duchesses  celebrate  him  as  a  man  whose 
speech  'led  them  off    their  feet.'      This  is  beautiful:  but  20 
still  more  beautiful  that  which  Mr.  Lockhart  has  recorded, 
which  I  have  more  than  once  alluded  to,  How  the  waiters 
and  ostlers  at  inns  would  get  out   li   oed,  and  come  crowd- 
ing to  hear  this  man  speak  !     Waiters  and  ostlers  :  —  they 
too  were  men,  and  here  was  a  man  !     I   have  heard  mucii 
about  his  speech  ;  but  one  of  the  best  things   I  ever  heard 
of  it  was,  last  year,  from  a  venerable  gentleman  long  famil- 
iar with  him.     That  it  was  speech  distinguished  by  always 
having  something  in  it.     "  He  spoke  rather  little  than  much," 
this  old  man  told  me;    "sat  rather  silent  in  those  earl)   30 
days,  as  in  the  company  of  persons  above  him  :  and  always 
when  he  did  speak,  it  was  to  throw  new  light  on  the  mat- 
ter."    I  know  not  why  any  one  should  ever  speak  other- 

'  H'  gracefullest 


^  A 


.m 


220 


LECTURES  OX  HEROES 


I 


?l 


I 


wise !  —  But  if  we  look  at  his  general  force  of  soul,  his 
healthy  robustness  everyway,  the  rugj^ed  downrightness, 
penetration,  generous  valour  and  manfulness  that  was  in 
him,  —  where  shall  we  readily  tind  a  better-gifted  man  ? 

Among  the  great  men  of  the  Kighteenth  Century,  I  some- 
times feel  as  if  Hums  might  be  found  to  resemble  Mirabeau 
more  than  any  other.  They  differ  widely  in  vesture;  yet 
look  at  them  intrinsically.  I'here  is  the  same  burly  thick- 
necked  '  strength  of  body  as  of  soul ;  —  built,  in  both  cases, 

to  on  what  the  old  Marquis  calls  a  fond  i^aillard.  By  nature, 
by  course  of  breeding,  indeed  by  nation,  Mirabeau  has 
much  more  of  bluster ;  a  noisy,  forward,  unresting  man. 
But  the  characteristic  of  Mirabeau  too  is  veracity  and  sense, 
power  of  true  insii^/if,  superiority  of  vision.  Th'  'ling  that 
he  says  is  worth  remembering.  It  is  a  flash  of  iiisight  into 
some  object  or  other:  so  do  both  these  men  speak.  The 
same  raging  passions ;  ca]Dable  too  in  both  of  manifesting 
themselves  as  the  tenderest  noble  affections.  Wit,  wild 
laughter,  energy,  directness,  sincerity  :   these  were  in  botii. 

20  The  types  of  the  two  men  are  not  dissimilar.  Burns  too 
could  have  governed,  debated  in  National  Assemblies ; 
politicised,  as  few  could.  Alas,  the  courage  which  had  to 
exhibit  itself  in  capture  of  smuggling  schooners  in  the  Sol- 
way  Frith  ;  in  keeping  si/auc  over  so  much,  where  no  good 
speech,  but  only  inarticulate  rage  was  possible:  this  miglit 
have  bellowed  forth  Tshers  de  Brezc  and  the  like  ;  and  made 
itself  visible  to  all  men,  in  managing  of  kingdoms,  in  ruling 
of  great  ever-memorable  epochs  !  But  they  said  to  him 
reprovingly,  his   ( )fficial   Superiors  said,   and  wrote :   '  V'ou 

30  are  to  work,  not  think.'  (^f  your  ///////7//i,'--faculty,  the  great- 
est in  this  land,  we  have  no  need  ;  you  are  to  gauge  beer 
there  ;  for  that  only  are  yon  wanted.  Very  notable  ;  —  and 
worth  mentioning,  though  we  know  what  is  to  be  said  and 

1  H'  IP  W  thicknecked 


niJ:    m.HO    AS   MAX   Oi'    /./  ///AS 


221 


answered  !     As  if    Thouyht,  I'ower  of    Jliinkin-   were  not, 
at  .all  times,  in  all  places  and  situations  of  tlit-  world,  jiro- 
cisely  the  thing  that  7.',/.-  wanted.      j-he  f;,t;il  man,  is  he  not 
always  the  ////thinkinjj  man,  the  man  who  cannot  think  and 
sec;  but  only  <,'ro])e,  and  iKiilucinate.  aid  y/z/vsee  tlu-  nature  of 
the  thing  he  works  with  ?      He  missecs  it,  and  mxsf.drs  it  as 
we  say  ;  takes  it  for  one  thing,  ;tnd  it  />•  anotlier  thing,       and 
leaves  him  standing  like  a   Futility  there  !     He  is 'the  fatal 
man;  unutterably  fatal,  put   in   the  high  places  of  men.  ~ 
"  Why  '  complain  of  this .' "  •  say  some  :  -  Strength  -  is  mourn-  m 
fully  denied  its  arena  ;  that  was  true  from  of  old."  -     !  )ouIh 
less  ;  and  the  worse  for  the  iin-nu,  answer  '  I  !     Comf^lainint^ 
profits    little;  stating  of    the    truth    may    |)roftt.      That    a 
Kurope,  with    its    French    Revolution    just    breaking    out, 
finds  no  need  of  a   Hums  e.xcept  for  gauging  beer,     -is  a 
thing  I,   for  one,   cannot  n-joUc  at ! 

Once  more  we  nave  to  say  here,  that  the  chief  .juality  of 
liurns  is  the  sincerity  of  him.  So  in  his  Poetry,  so'  in  his 
Life.  The  Song  he  sings  is  not  of  fan'asticalities  ;  it  is  of 
a  thing  felt,  really  there;  the  prime  merit  of  this,  .is  of  all  jo 
in  him,  and  of  his  Life  generally,,  is  truth.  i'he  I,ife 
of  Hums  is  what  we  may  call  a  great  tragic  sincerity.  A 
sort  of  savage  sincerity,  not  cruel,  far  from  that';  but 
wild,  wrestling  naked  with  the  truth  of  things.  In  that 
sense,  there  is  something  of  the  savage  in  all  great  men. 

Hero-worship,  —  Odin,  Hums?  Well:  these  NFen  of 
I-etters  too  were  not  without  a  kind  of  Hero  worship  :  but 
what  a  strange  condition  has  that  got  into  now  1  The  wait- 
ers and  ostlersof  Scotch  inns,  prying  about  tiie  door,  eager 
to  catch  any  word  that  fell  from  Hums,  were  doing  uncon-  ;,'■ 
scions  reverence  to  the  Heroic.  Johnson  had  his  Hoswell 
for  worshipper.     Rousseau  had  worshippers  enough  :  princes 


■■  k 


Hi 


f 


'  '  Quotation  nutrk-s  ii,  t  in  W  \\- 
2  ^  Quotation  maris  not  in  II'  IF 


MI'  .say 
*  not  in  IV 


222 


LKC TURKS  ON  HEROES 


I 


11 


ir 


,1 


calling  on  him  in  his  mean  garret;  the  great,  the  beautiful 
doing  reverence  to  the  poor  moonstruck  man.  For  himself 
a  most  portentous  contradiction ;  the  two  ends  of  his  life 
not  to  be  brought  into  harmony.  He  sits  at  the  tables  of 
grandees ;  and  has  to  copy  music  for  his  own  living.  He 
cannot  even  get  his  music  copied.  "  IJy  dint  of  dining 
out,"  says  he,  "  I  run  the  risk  of  dying  by  starvation  at 
home."  For  his  worshippers  too  a  most  questionable 
thing!     If  doing  Hero-worship  well  or  badly  be  the  test  of 

10  vital  wellbeing  or  illbeing  to  a  generation,  can  we  say  that 
//icu-  generations  are  very  first-rate.' — And  yet  our  heroic 
Men  of  Letters  do  teach,  govern,  are  kings,  priests,  or  what 
you  like  to  call  them ;  intrinsically  there  is  no  preventing 
it  by  any  means  whatever.  The  world  /ids  to  obey  him  who 
thinks  and  sees  in  the  world.  The  world  can  alter  the 
manner  of  that ;  can  either  have  it  as  blessed  continuous 
summer  sunshine,'  or  as  unblessed  black  thunder  and  tor- 
n.ado,  —  with  unspeakable  difference  of  profit  for  the  world! 
The  manner  of  it  is  very  alterable ;  the  matter  and  fact  of" 

2o  it  is  not  alterable  by-  any  power  under  the  sky.  Light; 
or,  failing  that,  lightning:  the  world  can  take  its  choice. 
Not  whether  we  call  an  Odin  god,  prophet,  priest,  or  what 
we  call  him;  but  whether  we  believe  the  word  he  tells  us: 
there  it  all  lies.  If  it  be  a  true  word,  we  shall  have  to 
believe  it ;  believing  it,  we  shall  have  to  do  it.  What  //./we 
or  welcome  we  give  him  or  it,  is  a  point  that  concerns  our- 
selves mainly.  //,  the  new  Truth,  new  deeper  revealing  of 
the  Secret  of  this  I'niverse,  is  verily  of  the  nature  of  a  mes- 
sage from  on  high  ;  and  must  and  will  have  itself  obeyed.  - 

JO  My  last  remark  is  on  that  notablest  phasis  of  Burns's 
history,"  -his''  visit  to  Fdinburgh.  Often  it  seems  to  me 
as  if  his  demeanour  there  were  the  highest  proof  he  gave  of 

1  II'  IP  IP  summer-sunshine  -  -  II'  Il^o^  it  not;  by 

'  '  II'  history  his 


THE   HERO   AS   MAX  OE   LETTEKS 


223 


what  a  fund  of  worth  and  genuine  manhood  was  in  him.  Ff 
we  think  of  it,  few  heavier  burdens  could  be  laid  on  the 
strength  of  a  man.  So  sudden  ;  all  common  Lionism,  which 
ruins  innumerable  i..en,  was  as  nothing  to  this.  It  is  as  if 
Napoleon  had  been  made  a  King  of,  not  gradually,  but  at 
once  from  the  Artillery  Lieutenancy  in  the  Regiment  La 
Fere.  IJurns,  still  only  in  his  twenty-seventh  year,  is  no 
longer  even  a  ploughman;  he  is  flying  to  the  West  Indies 
to  escape  disgrace  and  a  jail.  This  month  he  is  a  ruined 
peasant,  his  wages  seven  pounds  a  year,  and  these  gone  lo 
from  him  :  next  month  he  is  in  the  blaze  of  rank  and  beauty, 
handing  down  jewelled  Duchesses  to  dinner;  the  cynosure 
of  all  eyes!  Adversity  is  sometimes  hard  upon  a  man; 
but  for  one  man  who  can  stand  prosperity,  there  are  a 
hundred  that  will  stand  adversity.  I  admire  much  the  way 
in  which  Hums  met  all  this.  Perhaps  no  man  one  could 
point  out,  was  ever  .so  sorely  tried,  and  so  little  forgot  him- 
self. Tranquil,  unastonished ;  not  abashed,  not  inflated, 
neither  awkwardness  nor  affectation  :  he  feels  that  /if  there 
is  the  man  Robert  IKirns :  that  the  'rank  is  but  the  guinea-  20 
stamp;'  that  the  celebrity  is  but  the  candle-light,  which 
will  show  '  7i'//(7/  man,  not  in  the  least  make  him  a  better  or 
other  man  !  Alas,  it  may  readily,  unless  lie  look  to  it,  make 
him  a  icorse  man  ;  a  wretched  inflated  windbag,  —  inflated 
till  he  /'itrst,  and  become  a  titui/  lion  ;  for  whom,  as  some 
one  has  said,  'there  is  no  resurrection  of  the  body  ; '  worse 
*han  a  living  dog  !  —  Hums  is  admirable  here. 

And  yet,  alas,  as  I  have  observed  elsewhere,  these  Lion- 
hunters  were  the  ruin  and  death  of  liurns.  It  was  they 
that  rendered  it  impossible  for  him  to  live  !  They  gathered  30 
round  him  in  his  Farm  ;  hindered  his  industry  ;  no  place 
was  remote  enough  from  them.  He  could  not  get  his 
Lionism  forgotten,  honestly  as  he  was  disposed  to  do  so. 

1  II'  n-  IP  shew 


)  *■ 


I 


224 


LECTLkliS  OX  JiE'^OKS 


He  falls  into  discontents,  into  niiscries,  faults;  the  world 
getting  ever  more  desolate  for  him  ;  health  -t^-racter,  peace 
of  mind  all  gone  ;— solitary  enough  It  is  t!;i','ical 

to  think  of !  These  men  came  but  to  .,,  .nm  ;  it  was  out  of 
no  sympathy  with  him,  nor  no  hatred  to  him.  1  Ijey  came 
to  get  a  little  amusement :  they  got  their  amusement ;  - 
and  the  Hero's  life  went  for  it ! 

Richter  says,  in  the  Island  of  Sumatra  there  is  a  kind  of 
M.ight-chafers,'  large   Fire-Hies,  which    people   stick  upon 
10  spits,  and  illuminate  the  ways  with  at  night.     I'ers(jns  of  con- 
dition can  thus  travel  with  a  ple.asant  radiance,  which  the\ 
much  admire.     Great  honour  to  the  Fire-flies.     But !  — 


!^- 


LECTITRK    VI 


THF.    IlKKd    AS    KING.      (  KOMWKI.I.,    XAI'OI.KON  :    MODERN 
HKVOl.tTIONlSM 

[Friday,  22(     .lay  1840.] ' 

Wk  come  now  to  the  last  form  of  Heroism  ;  that  which 
we  call  Kingship.  The  Commander  over  Men;  he  to 
whose  will  our  wills  are  to  be  subordinated,  and  loyally 
surrender  themselves,  and  find  their  welfare  in  doing  so, 
may  be  reckoned  the  most  important  of  C.reat  Men.  He 
is  practically  the  summary  for  us  of  all  the  various  figures 
of  Heroism ;  Priest,  Teacher,  whatsoever  of  earthly  or  of 
spiritual  dignity  we  can  fancy  to  reside  in  a  man,  embodies 
itself  here,  to  command  over  us,  to  furnish  us  with  constant 
practical  teaching,  to  tell  us  for  the  day  and  hour  what  we  10 
are  to  do.  He  is  called  Rex,  Regulator,  Jioi .  our  own 
name  is  still  better  ;  King,  Konning,  which  means  Ciin-n'mg, 
Able-man. 

Numerous  considerations,  pointing  towards  deep,  ques- 
tionable, and  indeed  unfathomable  regions,  present  them- 
selves here :  on  the  most  of  which  we  must  resolutely  for 
the  present  forbear  to  speak  at  all.  As  Hurke  said  that 
perhaps  fair  Trial  by  Jury  was  the  soul  of  (lovernment,  and 
that  all  legislation,  administration,  parliamentary  debating, 
and  the  rest  of  it,  went  on,  in  order  '  to  bring  twelve  impar-  20 
tial  men  into  a  jury-box;'  —  so,  by  much  stronger  reason, 
may  I  say  here,   that  the  finding   of  your  Ableman  and 

»  ir  IP  \V  date  abmje  title. 
225 


I 

't 
it 

•f 


»l 


226 


t.ECTUKKS  ON  UEKOES 


1 


tl 


getting  him  invested  with  the  symMs  of  ,i/>i/ity,  with  dignity, 
worship  (TiwM-ship),  royalty,  kinghood,  or  whatever  wo 
call  it,  so  that  /le  may  actually  have  room  to  guide  accord- 
ing to  his  faculty  of  doing  it,  —  is  the  business,  well  or  ill 
accomplished,  of  all  social  procedure  whatsoever  in  this 
world  !  Hustings-speeches,  Parliamentary  motions.  Reform 
Bills,  French  Revolutions,  all  mean  at  heart  this ;  or  el.^c 
nothing.  Kind  in  any  country  the  Ablest  Man  that  exists 
theie  ;  raise  /lim  to  the  supreme  place,  and  loyally  reverence 
'o  him :  you  have  a  perfect  government  for  that  country ;  no 
ballot-box,  parliamentary  eloquence,  voting,  constitution- 
building,  or  other  machinery  whatsoever  can  improve  it 
a  whit.  It  is  in  the  perfect  state  ;  an  ideal  country.  The 
Ablest  Man ;  he  means  also  the  truest-hearted,  justest, 
the  Noblest  Man :  what  he  hi/s  us  h  do  must  be  precisely 
the  wisest,  fittest,  that  we  could  anywhere  or  anyhow  learn  ; 
—  the  thing  which  it  will  in  all  ways  behove  us,  with  right 
loyal  thankfulness,  and  nothing  doubting,  to  do !  Our  doini; 
and  life  were  then,  so  far  as  government  could  regulate  it, 
20  well  regulated  ;  that  w.rc  the  ideal  of  constituiions. 

Alas,  we  know  very  well  that  Ideals  can  never  be  com- 
pletely embodied  in  practice.  Ideals  must  ever  lie  a  very 
great  way  off;  and  we  will  right  thankfully  content  our- 
selves with  any  not  intolerable  approximation  thereto ! 
Lei  no  man,  as  .Schiller  says,  too  querulously  '  measure  by 
a  scale  of  perfection  the  meagre  product  of  reality  '  in  this 
poor  world  of  ours.  We  will  esteem  him  no  wise  man  ;  wc 
will  esteem  him  a  sickly,  discontented,  foolish  man.  And 
yet,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  never  to  be  forgotten  that 
3°  Ideals  do  exist ;  that  if  they  be  not  approximated  to  at 
all,  the  whole  matter  goes  to  wreck !  Infallibly.  No 
bricklayer  builds  a  vitlW  perfectly  perpendicular,  mathemati- 
cally this  is  not  possible  ;  a  certain  degree  of  perpendicular- 
ity suffices  him ;  and  he,  like  a  good  bricklayer,  who  must 


THE   HERO  AS  KING 


HI 


have  dnne  with  his  job,  leaves  it  so.  And  yet  if  he  sway 
/oo  muth  from  the  iwrpendicular ;  above  all,  If  he  throw 
plummet  and  level  quite  away  from  him,  and  pile  brick  on 
brick  heedless,  just  as  it  comes  to  hand  —  I  Such  brick- 
layer, I  think,  is  in  a  bud  way.  J/e  has  forgotten  himself: 
but  the  Law  of  Gravitation  does  not  forget  to  act  on  him ; 
he  and  his  wall  rush-down  '  into  confused  welter  of  niin  !    - 

This  is  the  history  of  all  rebellions,  l-rench  Revolutions, 
social  explosions  in  ancient  or  modern  times.  \om  have  mt 
the  too  6'>rable  Man  at  the  head  of  adairs  !  The  too  ignoble,  lo 
unvaliant,  fatuous  man.  You  have  forgotten  that  there  is 
any  rule,  or  natural  necessity  whatever,  of  putting  the  .Able 
Man  there.  Brick  must  lie  on  brick  as  it  may  and  can. 
Unable  Simulacrum  of  Ability,  quack,  in  a  word,  must  adjust 
himself  with  quack,  in  all  manner  of  administration  of 
human  things ;  —  which  accordingly  lie  unadministered, 
fermenting  into  unmeasured  masses  of  failure,  of  indigent 
misery:  in  the  outward,  and  in  the  inward  or  spiritual, 
miserable  millions  stretch-out''  the  hand  for  their  due  supply, 
anu  ?t  is  not  there.  The  *  law  of  gravitation  '  acts ;  Nature's  -o 
laws  do  none  of  them  forget  to  act.  The  miserable  millions 
burst-forth  "  into  Sansculottism,  or  some  other  sort  of  mad- 
ness: bricks  and  bricklayer  lie  as  a  fatal  chaos!  — 

Much  sorry  stuff,  written  some  hundred  years  ago  or 
more,  about  the  'Divine  right  of  Kings,'  moulders  unread 
now  in  the  Public  Libraries  of  this  country.  Far  h".  it 
from  us  to  disturb  the  ca'-n  process  by  which  it  is  disapi)ear- 
ing  harmlessly  from  the  earth,  in  those  repositories  !  .\t 
the  same  time,  not  to  let  the  immense  rubbish  go  without 
leaving  us,  as  it  ought,  some  soul  of  it  behind  —  I  will  say  3° 
that  it  did  mean  something;  something  true,  which  it  is 
important  for  us  and  all  men   to  keep  in  mind.     To  asst-rt 

1  IP  H»  IP  rush  down  *  H'  H'  H'  stretch  out 

8  W  W  W  burst  forth 


i^. 


!».( 


m 


■HlflBI 


III 

1 


I 


228 


th 


Liicn'A'/-:s  ox  ///i/fOA.s 


n  whatever  man  you  chose  to  lay  hold  of  ( hy  thin  or 
other  plan  of  clutching  at  him);  and  clapt  a  round 
,)iece  of  metal  on  the  head  of,  and  called   King,       there 
straightway  came  to  reside  a  divine  virtue,  so  that  /„■  became 
a  kind  of  god,  and  a  Divinity  inspired  him  with  faculty  and 
right  to  rule  over  you  to  all  lengths  :  this,       what  can  we  do 
with  this  but  leave  it  to  rot  silently  in  the  Public  F.ibraries  > 
Milt  I  will  say  withal,  and  that  is  what  these   Divine-right 
men  meant,  That  in   Kin-.,  and  in  all  human  Authorities, 
ro  and  relations  that  men  godcrcatcd  can  form  amon-  «ich 
other,  there  is  verily  either  a  Divine  Right  or  else  a  Di"aholic 
Wrong;  one  or   the  other  of  these  two!     For  it  is  false 
altogether,  what  the  last  Sceptical  (  entury  taught  us,  that 
this  world  is  a  steam-engine.     There  is  a  (lod  in  this  world 
.ind  a  (lod's-sanction,  or  else  the  violation  of  such,  does 
look-out '  from  all  ruling  and  obedience,  from  all  moral  acts 
of  men.      I'here  is  no  act  more  moral  between  men  than 
that  of  rule  and  obedience.     Woe  to  him  that  claims  obedi 
cnce  when  it  is  not  due;  woe  to  him  that  refuses  it  when 
20  ,t  is!     (lod's  law  is  in  that.  I  .say,  h..v^ever  the  I'archment- 
biws  may  run  :  there  is  a  Divine   R.g,.t  or  else  a  Diaboli- 
Wrong  at  the  heart  of  every  claim  that  one  man  makes 
upon  another. 

It  can  do  none  of  us  harm  to  reflect  cm  this:  in  all  the 
relations  of  life  it  will  concern  us  ;  in  f.ovaltyand  Royalty 
the  highest  of  these.  I  esteem  the  moelern  error,  That  all 
goes  by  self-int^-rest  and  the  checking;  and  balancing  <.( 
greedy  knaveries,  and  that,  in  short,  there  is  nothing  divine 
whatever  in  the  association  of  men,  a  still  more  despicable 
30  error,  natural  as  it  is  to  an  unbelieving  century,  than  that 
of  a  'divine  right  '  in  people  nM,/  Kings.  I  say,  Find  me 
the  true  AV;/////,/.^  King,     r  Able-man.  and  he  Jinx  a  divine 


right  over  nie. 


That  we  knew  in  some  tolerable  measure 
'  W  IIMP  lookout 


Till-:  rth.No  AS  kim: 


22^) 


how  to  linil  him,  and  th.il  all  men  were  ready  to  acknowl- 
edge his  divine  'ight  \»iien  found:  this  is  precisely  the 
healinjj  which  a  sick  world  is  everywhere,  in  these  ages, 
seeking  after!  t'I'he  true  Kin-^,  as  ;;iiide  ol  the  |)ractical, 
has  e\er  something  of  the  I'ontitT  in  him,  guitie  of  the 
spiritual,  from  which  all  practice  has  its  rise.  This  too  is  a 
true  saying,  That  the  A'/m^'  is  head  tif  the  C'/n/n//.  Itut  we 
will  leave  the  Polemic  stulT  of  a  iiead  century  to  lie  (|uiet 
on  its  bookshelves. 


Certainly  it  is  a  fearful  business,  thai  of  having  your  lo 
Able-man  to  .uri',  and  not  knowing  in  what  manner  to  pro- 
ceed about  it !  That  is  the  world's  sad  predicament  in 
these  times  of  ours.  They  are  times  of  revolution,  and 
have  long  been.  The  bricklayer  with  his  bricks,  no  longer 
heedful  of  plununet  or  the  law  of  {gravitation,  have  toppled, 
tumbled,  and  it  all  welters  as  we  see!  Ihit  the  beginning 
of  it  was  not  the  I'rench  Revolution  ;  that  is  rather  the  (•//,/, 
we  can  hope.  It  were  truer  to  say,  the  ih-i^iiiuim;  was  three 
centuries  farther  back:  in  the  Reformation  of  Luther.  That 
the  thing  which  still  called  itself  Christian  Church  had  20 
become  a  Falsehood,  and  brazenly  went  about  pretending 
to  pardon  men's  sins  for  metallic  coined  money,  and  to  do 
much  else  which  in  the  everlasting  truth  of  Nature  it  did 
//('/  now  do :  here  lay  the  vital  malady.  The  inward  being 
wrong,  all  outward  went  ever  more  and  more  wrong.  lielief 
died  away;  all  was  Doubt,  Disbelief.  The  buildjr  ui^t 
<i7i>(iv  his  j)lummet ;  said  to  himself,  "  What  is  gravitation  .' 
IJrick  lies  on  brick  there  !  "  Alas,  does  it  not  still  sound 
strange  to  many  of  us,  the  assertion  that  there  /'.<  a  (lod's- 
truth  in  the  business  of  god-created  men;  that  all  is  not  a  30 
kind  of  grimace,  an  'expediency,'  diplomacy,  one  knows 
not  what !  — 

From  that  first  necessary  assertion  of  Luther's,   "  ^'ou, 


i  ? 


230 


LECTURES  OX  HEROES 


self-styled  Papa,  you  are  no  Father  in  God  at  all ;  you  are 
—  a*  Chimera,  whom   I   know  not  how  to  name  in  polite 
language !  "  —  from  that  onwards  to  the  shout  which  rose 
round    Camille    Desmoulins    in    the    Palais-Royal,    '' Anx 
armes!"  when  the  people  had  burst-up^  against  a// manner 
of  Chimeras,  —  I  find  a  natural  historical  sequence.     That 
shout  too,  so  frightful,  half-infernal,  was  a  gr  at  matter. 
Once  more  the  voice  of  awakened  nations  ;  —  starting  con- 
fusedly, as  out  of  nightmare,  as  out  of  death-sleep,   into 
10  some  dim  feeling  that  Life  was  real ;  that  God's-world  was 
not  an  expediency  and  diplomacy  !     Infernal ;  —  yes,  since 
they  would  not  have    it   otherwise.     Infernal,    since   not 
celestial   or    terrestrial  !      Hollowness,    insincerity    has   to 
cease  ;  sincerity  of  some  sort  has  to  begin.     Cost  what  it 
may,  reigns  of  terror,  horrors  of  French  Revolution  or  what 
else,  we  have  to  return  to  truth.     Here  is  a  Truth,  as  I 
said :  a  Truth  clad  in  hellfire,  since  they  would  not  but 
have  it  so  !  — 

A  common  theory  among  considerable  parties  of  men  in 
20  England  and  elsewhere  used  to  be,  that  the  French  Nation 
had,  in  those  days,  as  it  were  gone  mad;  that  the  French 
Revolution  was  a  general  act  of  insanity,  a  temporary  con- 
version of  France  and  large  sections  of  the  world  into  a 
kind  of  Bedlam.     The  Event  had  risen  and  raged  ;  but  was  a 
madness  and  nonentity,  — gone  now  happily  into  the  region 
of  Dreams  and   the   Picturesque !  — To  such  comfortable 
philosophers,  the  Three  Days  of  July  1830  must  have  been 
a  surprising  phenomenon.     Here  is  the  French  Nation  risen 
again,   in   musketry  and  death-struggle,  out   shooting  and 
30  being  shot,  to   make  that  same  mad  French   Revolution 
good  !     The  sons  and  grandsons  of  those  men,  it  would 
seem,   persist   in  the  enterprise:  they  do  not  disown  it; 
they  will  have  it  made  good ;  will  have  themselves  shot,  if 
»  H'  are  a  »  H'  H*  H'  burst  up 


THE    I/JIKO    AS   KIXC 


231 


it  be  not  made  good  !  To  philosophers  who  had  made-up » 
their  life-system  on  that  '  madness '  quietus,-  no  phenome- 
non could  be  more  alarming.  Poor  Niebuhr,  they  say,  the 
Prussir;,  i'-r.fc..sor  and  Historian,  fell  broken-hearted  in 
conse  luence  :  sinki.njd,  if  we  can  believe  it,  and  died  of  the 
Threv  l\iys  '  !t  vas  surely  not  a  very  heroic  death  ;  — 
little  b  ..•  ili.ri  kacine's,  dying  because  Louis  Fourteenth 
looked  sternly  on  him  once.  The  world  had  stood  some 
considerable  shocks,  in  its  time  ;  might  have  been  expected 
to  survive  the  Three  Days  too,  and  be  found  turning  on  its  ic 
axis  after  even  them!  The  Three  Days  told  all  mortals 
that  the  old  French  Revolution,  mad  as  it  might  look,  was 
not  a  transitory  ebullition  of  liedlam,  but  a  genuine  prod- 
uct of  this  Earth  where  we  all  live;  that  it  was  verily  a 
Fact,  and  that  the  world  in  general  would  do  well  every- 
where to  regard  it  as  such. 

Truly,  without  the  French  Revolution,  one  would  not 
know  what  to  make  of  an  age  like  this  at  all.  We  will  hail 
the  French  Revolution,  as  shipwrecked  mariners  might  the 
sternest  rock,  in  a  world  otherwise  all  of  ba.seless  sea  and  2c 
waves.  A  true  Apocalypse,  though  a  terrible  one,  to  this 
false  withered  artificial  time;  testifying  once  more  that 
Nature  is //r/^matural ;  if  not  divine,  then  diabolic:  that 
Semblance  is  not  Reality  ;  that  it  has  to  become  Reality,  or 
the  world  will  take-tire "  under  it,  —  burn  //  into  what  it  is, 
namely  Nothing  !  Plausibility  has  ended  ;  empty  Routine 
has  ended  ;  much  has  ended.  I'his,  as  with  a  Trump  of 
Doom,  has  been  proclaimed  to  all  men.  They  are  the 
wisest  who  will  learn  it  soonest.  Long  confused  genera- 
tions before  it  be  learned  ;  peace  impossible  till  it  be  !  The  30 
earnest  man,  surrounded,  as  ever,  with  a  world  of  incon- 
sistencies, can  await  patiently,  patiently  strive  to  do  his 

'  IP  W^W  made  up  2  IP  ip  madness-quietus 

*  H'  II'  H^  take  fire 


•  %  .n . ! 


t 


I 


m 


II 


icfsi 


ir 
It  i 


a 


Ui 


232 


LECTURES   OK  HEROES 


work,  in  th*^  midst  of  that.     Sentence  of  Death  is  written 
down  in  Heaven  against  all  that ;  sentence  of  Death  is  now 
proclaimed  on  the  Earth  against  it :  this  he  with  his  eyes 
may  see.     And  surely,  I  should  say,  considering  the  other 
side  of  the  matter,  what  enormous  difficulties  Ue  there,  and 
how   fast,  fearfully  fast,   in   all   countries,   the  inexorable 
demand  for  solution  of  them  is  pressing  on,  —  he  may  easily 
find  other  work  to  do  than  labouring  in  the  Sansculottic 
province  at  this  time  of  day  ! 
10       To  me,  in  these  circumstances,  that  of  '  Hero-worship 
becomes  a  fact  inexpressibly  precious ;  the  most  solacing 
fact  one  sees  in  the  world  at  present.     There  is  an  everlast- 
ing hope  in  it  for  the  management  of  the  world.     Had  all 
traditions,  arrangements,  creeds,  societies  that  men  ever 
instituted,  sunk  away,  this  would  remain.      The  certainty  of 
Heroes  being  sent  us ;  our  faculty,  our  necessity,  to  rever- 
ence Heroes  when  sent :  it  shines  like  a  polestar»  through 
smoke-clouds,  dust-clouds,  and  all  manner  of  down-rushing 
and  confi  i^ration. 
20       Hero-worship  would  have  sounded  very  strange  to  those 
workers  and  fighters  in  the  French  Revolution.     Not  rever- 
ence for  Great  Men  ;  not  any  hope-  or  belief,  or  even  wish, 
that  Great  Men  could  again  appear  in  the  world  !     Nature, 
turned  into  a  '  Machine,'  was  as  if  effete  now ;  could  not 
any  longer  produce  Great  Men  :  —  I  can  tell  her,  she  may 
give-up » the  trade  altogether,  then;  we  cannot  do  without 
Great  Men!  —  But  neither  have  I  any  quarrel  with  that  of 
'  Liberty  and  Equality; '  with  the  faith  that,  wise  great  men 
being  impossible,  a  level  immensity  of  foolish  small  men 
30  would   suffice.      It   was   a    natural    faith    then    and    there. 
"Liberty  and  Equality;  no  Authority  needed  any  longer. 
Hero-worship,  reverence  for  such  Authorities,  has  proved 

1  n-  H*  IP  pole-star  *  h«  IP  H'  hope, 

«  H'  IP  11'  give  up 


r/iF.  nr.Ro  as  a/xg  [   233  \ 

I 

filse,  is  itself  a  falsehofxl  ;  no  more  of  it!  We  have  had 
such  fori^crii-s,  we  will  now  trust  nothing'.  So  many  base 
plated    coins   passin-^    in   the   market,   the   belief   has   now 

become  common  that  no  gokX  any  longer  exists, and  even 

that  we  can  do  very  well  without  gold  !  "  I  find  this,  among 
other  things,  in  that  universal  cry  of  Liberty  and  Equality  ; 
and  find  it  very  natural,  as  matters  then  stood. 

And  yet  surely  it  is  but  the  transition  from  false  to  true. 
Considered  as  the  whole  truth,  it  is  false  altogether ; - 
the  product  of  entire  sceptical  blindness,  as  yet  only  strug-  lo 
gling  to  see.  Hero-worship  exists  forever,  and  everywhere : 
not  Loyalty  alone;  it  extends  from  divine  adoration  down 
to  the  lowest  practical  regions  of  life.  '  lending  before 
men,'  if  it  is  not  to  be  a  mere  empty  grimace,  better  dis- 
pensed with  than  practised,  is  Hero-worship,  —  a  recogni- 
tion that  there  does  dwell  in  that  presence  of  our  brother 
something  divine;  that  every  created  man.  as  Xovalis 
said,  is  a  'revelation  in  the  Flesh.'  They  were  Poets  too, 
that  devised  all  those  graceful  courtesies  which  make  life 
nol-'  Courtesy  is  not  a  falsehood   or  grimace;  it   need  20 

no,  ch.     And   Loyalty,   religious  Worship  itself,  are 

still      ,.^.-,ii)le;  nay  still   inevitable. 

May  we  not  say,  moreover,  while  so  many  of  our  late 
Heroes  have  worked  rather  as  revolutionary  men,  that 
nevertheless  every  (Jreat  ^Lln,  every  genuine  man,  is  by 
the  nature  of  him.  a  son  of  Order,  not  of  Disorder?  It  is 
a  tragical  position  for  a  true  man  to  work  in  revolutions. 
He  seems  an  anarchist;  and  indeed  a  painful  element  of 
anar  .^  does  encumber  him  at  every  step,  -  him  to  whose 
whole  soul  anarchy  is  hostile,  hateful.  His  mission  is  30 
Order;  every  man's  is.  He  is  here  to  make  what  was  dis- 
orderly, chaotic,  into  a  thing  ruled,  regular.  He  is  the 
missionary  of  Order.  Is  not  all  work  of  man  in  this  world 
a  making  of  Order  1     The  carpenter   finds    rough    trees; 


:! 


V      : 


234 


LECTUKES   OX  HENOES 


\A 


shapes  them,  constrains  them  into  s(iuare  fitness,  mto  pui- 
pose  and  use.  We  are  all  born  enemies  oi  Disorder  :  it  is 
tragical  for  us  all  to  be  concerned  in  image-breaking  and 
down-pulling;  for  the  Great  Man,  more  a  man  than  we,  it 

is  doubly  tragical. 

Thus  too  all  human  things,  maddest  French  bansculot- 
tisms,  do  and  must  work  towards  Order.     I  say,  there  is 
not  a  man  in  them,  raying  in  the  thickest  of  the  madness, 
but   is  impelled  withal,   at  all    moments,   towards   Order. 
10  His  very  life  means  that;  Disorder  is  dissolution,  death. 
No  chaos  but  •:.  seeks  a  centre  to  revolve  round.     While  man 
is  man,  some  Cromwell  or  Napoleon  is  the  necessary  finish 
of  a  Sansculottism.- Curious:  in  those  days  when  Hero- 
worship  was  the  most  incredible  thing  to  every  one,  how  it 
does  come-out'  nevertheless,  and  assert  itself  practically, 
in  a  way  which  all  have  to  credit.      1  )ivine  right,  take  it  on 
the    great    scale,    is    found  to    mean  divine  mi^^ht  withal ! 
While  old  false  Formulas  are  getting  trampled  everywhere 
into   destruction,    new    genuine    Substances    unexpectedly 
20  unfold  themselves  indestructible.      In  rebellious  ages,  when 
Kin-ship  itself  seems  dead  and  abolished,  C^romwell,  Napo- 
leon'step-forth  -  again  as  Kings.      The  history  of  these  men 
is  what  we  have  now  to  look  at,  as  our  last  phasis  of  Hero- 
ism     The  old  ages  are  brought  back  to  us  ;  the  manner  in 
which  Kings  were  made,  and  Kingship  itself  tirst  took  rise, 
is  again  exhibited  in  the  history  of  these  Two. 

We  have  had  many  civil-wars  in  Fngland  ;  wars  of  Red 
and  White  Roses,  wars  of  Simon  de  Montfort ;  wars  enough, 
which  are  no ,  very  memorable.  Hut  that  war  of  the  Pun- 
30  tans  has  a  significance  which  belongs  to  no  one  of  the 
others.  Trusting  to  your  candour,  which  will  suggest  on 
the  other  side  what  I  have  not  room  to  say,  I  will  call  it  a 
UIMIMP  come  out  MP  IF  IP  step  forth 


Till-:    lll:RO    AS   A'/XC 


Ji.^ 


^:i 


section  uiicu  more  of  that  -ic.u  uiiivcrsal  war  whicli  alone 
niakes-up'  the  true  History  of  tlie  World, —the  war  of 
ISelief  acjainst  Unbelief!      Ihe  stru^^'Me  of 


the 


real  essence  o 


f  tl 


im; 


blances  and  forms  of  tl 


men  intent  on 
;s.  aj,Minst  men   intent  on  the  sein- 


nm 


I'iie  I'uritans,  ti 


)  manv,  seem 


me 


re  savage   Iconoclasts,  tierce  de  .trovers  (;f   Forms-   1 


)iit 


10 


It  were  more  just  to  call  them  haters  of  un/ru^  Forms.      I 
hope  we  know  how  t(.  respect   Laud  and  his  Kin^r  as  well 
as  them.      I'oor  Laud  seems  to  me  to  have  been  weak  and 
ill-starred,  not    dishonest  ;    an    unfortunate    Pedant   rather 
than  anythinjr  worse.      His    'Dreams'   and    superstitions, 
at  which  they  lau-h  so,  have  an  atfectionate,  lovable-  kind 
of  character.      He  is  like  a  (  ollei^e-Tutor,  whose  whole  world 
is  forms,  ( 'ollege-rules  ;  whose  n(jtion  is  that  these  are  the  life 
and  safety  of  the  world.      He  is  placed  suddenly,  with  that 
unalterable  luckless  notion  of  his,  at  the  iiead  not  of  a  Col- 
lege but  of  a   Nation,  to  regulate  the  most  complex  deep- 
reaching  interests  of  men.      He  thinks  they  oug'  t  to  go  by 
the  old   decent   regulations;  nay   that  their  salvation   will 
lie  in  extending  and  improving  these.      Like  a  weak  man,  30 
he  drives  with  spasmodic  vehemence  towards  iiis  purpose; 
cramps  himself  to  it,  heeding  no  voice  of  prudence,  no  cry 
of  pity  :    He  will  have  his  College-rules  obeyed   by  his  Col- 
legians; that  first;   and   till   tliat,   nothing.      He   is  an   ill- 
starred  I'edant,  as  [  said.      He  would  have  it  tlie  world  was 
a  College  of  that  kind,  and  the  world   7k<cis  not  tl;<i.      Alas, 
was  not  his  doom  stern  enough  t     Whatever  wrongs  he  did, 
were  they  not  all  frigiufully  avenged  on  him  ? 

It  is  meritorious  to  insist  on  forms  ;  Religit)n  and  all  else 
naturally  clothes  itself  in  forms.  I'.verywhere  ihe  form  '  30 
world  is  the  only  habitable  one.  The  naked  formlessness 
of  Puritanism  is  not  the  thing  I  praise  in  the  Puritans;  it 
IS  the  thing  I  pity,  —  praising  only  the  spiiit  which  had 
'  H'  11^  II '  makes  mi.  -  ||'  H-  l.,veal.le 


if^ 


I 


i\ 


!:i 


i  i 


2.16 


i.Ecrrm.s  ox  heroes 


rendered  thnt  inevitable  !  All  substances  clothe  themselves 
in  forms  •.  but  there  are  suitable  true  forms,  and  then  there 
are  untrue  unsuitable.  As  the  briefest  definition,  one  might 
say,  lorms  which  ^nn.'  round  a  substance,  if  we  rightly 
understand  that,  will  correspond  to  the  real  nature  and 
purport  of  it,  will  be  true,  good  ;  forms  which  are  con- 
sciously//// round  a  substance,  bad.  I  invite  you  to  reflect 
on  this.  It  distinguishes  true  from  false  in  Ceremonial 
Form,  earnest  solemnity  from  empty  pageant,  in  all  human 

lo  things. 

There  must  be  a  veracity,  a  natural  spontaneity  in  forms. 
In  the  commonest  meeting  of  men,  a  person  making,  what 
Nve  call  'set  speeches,'  is  not  he  an  otfence  ?     In  the  mere 
drawing-room,  whatsoever  courtesies  you  see  to  be  grimaces, 
prompted  by  no  spontaneous  reality  within,  are  a  thing  you 
wish  to  get  away  from.      Hut  suppose  now  it  were  some 
matter  of  vital  concernment,  some  transcendent  matter  (as 
Divine  Worship  is),  about  which  your  whole  soul,  struck 
dumb  with  its  excess  of  feeling,  knew  not  how  to>-;«  itself 
zo  into  utterance  at  all,  and  preferred  formless  silence  to  any 
utterance  there  possible,     -  what  should  we  say  of  a  man 
comin<-  forward  to  represent  or  utter  it  tor  you  in  the  way 
of  uphoistercr-mummery  ^     Such  a  man,  — let  him  depart 
swiftlv,  if  he  love  himself !     Vou   have  lost  your  only  son  ; 
are  mute,  struck  down,  without  even  tears:   an  importunate 
man  importunUely  oJers  to  celebrate   Funeral  (iames  for 
him  in  the  manner  of  the  Creeks  !     Such  mummery  is  not 
onlv  not  to  be  accepted,'  -  it '  is  hateful,  unendurable.     It 
is  what  the  old  Prophets  called  '  Idolatry,'  worshipping  of 
30  hollow  slum's ' :  what  all  earnest  men  do  and  will  reject.    W  e 
can  partlv  understand  what   those  poor   Puritans  meant. 
Laud  dedicating  that  St.  Catherine  C'reed's  Church,  in  the 
manner  we  have  it  described ;  with  his  multiplied  ceremo- 
1  I  1 P  HMP  accepted  ;  it  ^  H»  H^  shews 


Till:     lll-Rl)    AS    K/\i; 


nial  bowinj^s,  j^e.sticul.xtio!i>.,  i-\t:!,iin  uiuii>  ;  Miiciy  ii  i^  r.uliur 
the-  rij^orous  formal  /',./. t/i\  intriit  i.n  !i!>  •  (  Diit-f-ru'cs,' 
than  the  earnest  I'rophet,  imeiit  -mi  tlie  essence  of  the 
matter  ! 

Turitanism  found  sih/i  forms  iMsiii)portal)le  ;  tr.impled  on 
such  forms;  -we  have  to  e\cu>.e  it  for  savin-.  No  form 
ai  all  rather  tiian  sucli  !  It  stood  preatliin-  in  it>  hare 
pulpit,  with  nothini,'  but  the  ilihle  in  its  iiand.  Nav,  a  man 
preaching  from  his  earnest  .»,////  into  tiie  earnest  s.'u.'s  of 
men:  is  not  this  virtually  tlie  essence  of  all  (  luirclio  w  hat- 
soever  ?  'I'he  nakedest,  savaj;esl  reality,  1  say.  i^  pnfer- 
able  to  any  semblance,  howewr  diijnirud.  Ilesidcs.  it  will 
clothe  itself  with  </in-  semhiani  e  bv  ami  1)\ ,  if  it  be  real. 
N'o  fear  of  that;  actually  no  tear  at  all.  (;iven  tht.  living,' 
nuvi,  there  will  be  found  </'///,>  for  him  :  he  w  ill  lind  himself 
clothes.  Hut  the  suit-of-clothes  pretend  in-  that  .7  i-,  both 
clothes  and  man  —  !  —  We  cannot  •  li-ht  tin-  I'rinih'  by 
three-hundred-thousand'  n;(l  uniforms:  tlu-re  mu^t  be  m,/i 
in  the  inside  of  them  \  Semblance,  I  assert,  nmsi  actually 
w/ divorce  itself  from  Reality.  If  Semblance  do,  why 
then  there  must  be  men  found  to  rebel  aL:;ainst  Semblance. 
for  it  has  become  a  lie!  i'hese  two  Antaironism^  at  w.ir 
here,  in  the  case  of  Laud  and  the  Puritans,  are  as  old  nearly 
as  the  world.  'I'hey  went  to  tierce  battle  over  Kn-land  in 
that  age  ;  and  fought-out  -  their  confused  controversy  to  a 
certain  length,  with  many  results  for  all  of  us. 


I 


f    i 


i 


In  the  age  which  directly  followed  that  of  the  Puritans, 
their  cause  or  themselves  were  little  likely  to  h.ive  justice 
done  them.  Charles  Second  and  his  Kochesiers  were  not 
the  kind  of  men  you  would  set  to  judge  what  the  worth  or  3c 
meaning  of  such  men  might  havi^  been.  Th-t  tbere  could 
be  any  faith  or  truth  in  the  life  of  a  man.  was  what  these 


.     « 


m 


'  tV  IV  IV  three  hundred  thousand      -  H'  H-  U"  f.ught  out 


2iS 


i.i:cTiu<i:s  ox  /n-.KOhS 


poor  Roches'.;rs,  and  tlic  a-e  they  ushcrcd-in,'  had  forgot- 
ten. I'uritanism  was  luin,;;  on  gil)bels,  -  like  the  bones  of 
the  leadin-;  I'uritans.  Its  work  nevertheless  went  on  ocom- 
plishin-  itself.  All  true  work  of  a  nnm,  han-  the  author  of 
it  on  wliat  -ibbet  you  like,  must  and  will  accomplish  itself. 
We  have  our  /f,iln,is-Cor/'iis,  our  free  Representation  of  the 
I'eople;  acknowled<,Mnent,  wide  as  the  world,  that  all  men 
are,  or  else  must,  shall,  and  will  become,  what  we  call  /nv 
men  ;  -  men  with  their  life  <,'rounded  on  reality  and  justice, 
10  not  on  tradition,  which  has  become  unjust  and  a  chimera! 
This  in  part,  and  much  besides  this,  was  the  work  of  the 

Puritans. 

And  indeed,  as  these  things  became  j^radually  manifest, 
the  character  of  the  I'uritans  beijan  to  clear  itself.  iheir 
memories  were,  one  after  another,  taken  Mon  from  the  -ib- 
bet ;  nay  a  certain  i)ortion  of  them  are  now,  in  these  days, 
as  good  as  canonised.-  Kliot,  Haminlen,  I'ym,  nay  Lud- 
low? Hutchinson,'  Vane  himself,  are  admitted  to  be  a  kind 
of  Heroes;    political    Conscript    Fathers,    to   whom    in    no 

20  small  degree  we  owe  what  makes  us  a  free  I'.ngl md  :  it 
would  not  be  safe  for  anybody  to  designate  the.-,e  men 
HS  wicked  now."  Few  I'uritans  of  note  but  liud  their  apol- 
ogists somewhere,  and  have  a  certain  reverence  paid  tliem 
by  earnest  men.  One  I'uritan,  I  think,  and  almost  he  alone, 
our  poor  Cromwell,  seems  to  hang  yet  on  the  gibbet,  and 
find  no  hearty  apologist  anywhere.  Him  neither  saint  nor 
sinner  will  acijuit  of  great  wickedness.  A  man  of  aliility, 
infinite  talent,  ccmrage,  and  so  forth:  but  he  betrayed  the 
Cause.      Selfish   ambition,  dishonesty,   duplicity;   a   tierce. 

30  coarse,   hypocritir  al   T,>rt>if-' i  turning  all  that  noble  strug- 
gle for  constitutional  Liberty  into  a  .sorry  farce  played  for 

1  IP  11=  IP  ushered  in  ■'  H'  IF  lluuhesdi 

■i  \V  IPcanoni/.ecl  '  :i"l  >"  H' 

■■'  IP  II-    f\.,lu(U- 


THE    IIEHO   AS   hl.W: 


2,V> 


his  own  benefit :  this  and  worse  is  the  character  they  };ive 
of  Cromwell.  And  then  there  come  contrasts  with  Wash- 
ington and  others ;  above  all,  with  these  noble  i'yius  and 
Hampdens,  whose  noble  work  he  stole  for  himself,  and 
ruined  into  a  fiitilitv  and  deformity. 

This  view  of  Cromwell  seems  to  me  the  not  unnatural 
product  of  a  century  like  the  Ki^hteenth.  '.  As  we  said  of 
the  V.ile;.  so  of  the  Sceptic:  He  does  not  know  a  Hero 
when  he  sees  him  !  The  X'alet  expected  puri)le  mantles, 
yilt  sceptres,  body  {guards  and  flourishes  of  trumpets :  the  «o 
Sceptic  of  the  Kijjhteenth  century  looks  for  regulated 
respectable  Formulas,  '  Principles,'  or  what  else  he  may 
call  them  ;  a  style  of  sjieech  and  conduct  which  has  got  to 
seem  '  respectable,' which  can  jilead  for  itself  in  a  hand- 
some articulate  manner,  and  gain  the  suffrages  of  an  en- 
lightened sceptical  Kighteenth  century!  It  is,  at  bottom, 
the  same  thing  that  both  the  Valet  and  he  expect:  the 
garnitures  of  some  tukiunvlcii^iJ  royalty,  which  t/icn  they 
will  acknowledge !  i'he  King  coming  to  them  in  the 
rugged  ////formulistic  state  shall  be  no  King.  20 

For  my  own  share,  far  be  it  from  me  to  say  or  insinuate 
a  word  of  disparagement  against  such  characters  as  Hamp- 
den, Fliot,  I'ym  ;  whom  I  believe  to  have  been  right  worthy 
and  h-^eful  men.  i  have  read  diligently  what  books  and 
documents  about  them  I  could  come  at ;-  with  the  honest- 
est  wish  to  admire,  to  love  and  worship  them  like  Heroes; 
but  I  am  sorry  to  say,  if  tiie  real  truth  must  be  told,  with 
very  indifferent  success  !  At  bottom,  I  found  tliat  it  would 
not  do.  They  are  very  noble  men,  these ;  step  along  in 
their  stately  way,  with  their  measured  euphemisms,'  philos-  30 
ophies,  parliamentary  eloquences.  Ship-moneys,'^  J/wwrr^/Vj 
i]f  Man:  a  most  constitutional,  unblamable,"  dignified  set  of 


■5. 


if 


»  H'  II*  H'  euphui 


H'  M"  Sliinnionies 


II'  II-  unhlanie.'iMc 


•  i 


240 


LECTURES  OiW  HEROES 


men.  But  the  heart  remains  cold  before  then);  the  fancy 
alone  endeavours  to  yet-up'  some  wcirsliij)  of  them.  What 
man's  heart  does,  in  reality,  break-forth  *  into  any  lire  of 
brotherly  love  for  these  men  ?  ihey  are  become  dread- 
fully dull  men!  One  breaks-down'  often  enoujjh  in  the 
constitutional  eloquence  (jf  the  admirable  I'ym,  with  his 
•seventhly  and  lastly.'  N'ou  find  that  it  may  be  the  admi- 
lablest  thing  in  the  world,  but  that  it  is  heavy,  -heavy  as 
lead,  barren  as  brick-clay  ^  that,  in  a  word,  for  you  there 

10  is  little  or  nothing;  now  survivinj;  there!  One  leaves  all 
these  Nobilities  standinj;  in  their  niches  of  honour:  the 
rugged  outcast  Cromwell,  he  is  the  man  of  then)  all  in 
whom  one  still  finds  human  stutT.  The  great  savage  lUuc- 
sark :  he  could  write  no  euphemistic'  Momuihy  of  Man ; 
did  not  speak,  did  not  work  with  glib  regularity;  had  no 
straight  story  to  tell  for  himself  anywhere,  liut  he  stood 
i;are,  not  cased  in  euphe)nistic "  coat-of-mail  ;  he  grajiplcd 
like  a  giant,  face  to  face,  heart  to  heart,  with  the  naked 
truth  of  things !      That,  after  all,   is  the  sort  of  nian  for 

20  one.  I  plead  guilty  to  valuing  such  a  man  beyond  all 
other  sorts  of  men.  Smooth-shaven  Respectabilities  not  a 
few  one  finds,  that  are  not  good  for  much.  Small  thanks 
to  a  man  for  keeping  his  hands  clean,  who  would  not 
touch  the  work  but   with  gloves  on  ! 

Neither,  on  the  whole,  does  this  constitutional  tolerance 
of  the  Eighteenth  century  for  the  other  happier  Puritans 
seon  to  be  a  very  great  matter.  One  might  say,  it  is  but 
a  piece  of  Formulism  and  Scepticism,  like  the  rest.  They 
tell  us,  It  was  a  sorrowful  thing  to  consider  that  the  foun- 

30  dation  of  our  English  Liberties  should  have  been  laid  by 
'Superstition.'     These  Puritans  came  forward  with  t'alvin- 


I  H'  H*  H^  get  up 

■-•  H'  H'  IP  break  forth 

»  H'  H»  IP  breaks  down 


<  II'  11=  llM)rick  day 
6  IP  IP  IPeuphuistic 
«  H'  IP  H^  euphuistic 


77//;   HERO  AS  KIXG 


241 


istir  incredible  Creeds  .Anti-Laudisms,  Westminster  r  un 
fessions ;  demanding.  chieHy  of  all,  that  they  should  hive 
liberty  to  ivonhip  in  their  own  way.     Liberty  to  Uix  them- 
selves :  that  was  the  thing  they  should  have  demanded  !    It 
was  SuiH-Tstition,  Fanaticism,  disgraceful  ignorance  of  Con- 
stitutional Philosophy  to  insist  on  the  other  thing !  -  Liberty 
to  tax  oneself?     Not  to  pay-out  'money  from  your  pocket 
except  on  reason  shonn-?     No   century,    I   think,  but  a 
rather  barren  one  woulu  have  fixed  on  that  as  the  first  right 
of  man  !     I  should  say,  on  the  contrary,  A  just  n>an  will  lo 
generally  have    I)etler    cause    than   motuy   in   what    shape 
soever,  before  deciding  to  revolt  against  his  (lovernment. 
Ours  is  a  most  confused  world  ;  in  which  a  good  man  will 
be  thankful  to  see  any  kind  of  (Jovernment  maintain  itself 
in  a  not  insupportable  manner:  and  here  in   Kngland,  to 
this  hour,  if  he  is  not  ready  to  pay  a  great  many  taxes 
which  //(•  can  see  very  small  reason  in,  it  will  not  go  well 
with  him,  J  think!     He  must  try  some  other  climate  than 
this.      Taxgatherer  .>     Money.'     Fie  will  say :     "Take  my 
money,  since  you  fan,  and  it  is  so  desirable  to  you ;  take  zo 
it,  — and  take  yourself  away  with  it;  and  leave  me  alone 
to  my  work  here.     /  am  still  here  ;  can  still  work,  after  all 
th'j  money  you  have  taken  from  me !  "     lUit  if  they  come  to 
iiim,  and  say,  "  Acknowledge  a  Lie  ;  pretend  to  say  you  are 
worshipping  (lod,  when  you  are  not  doing  it :   believe  not 
the  thing  that  yon  find  true,  but  the  thing  that  I  find,  or 
pretend  to  find  true!"     He  will  answer :   "No;  by  Clod's 
help,  no''!     You   may  take  my  purse;  but    1   cannot   have 
my  moral  Self  annihilated.     The  pursers  any   Highway- 
man's who  might  meet  me  with  a  loaded  pistol :  but  the  ,3c 
Self  is  mine  and  God  my  Maker's;  it  is  not  yours;  and  I 
will  resist  you  to  the  death,  and  revolt  aira 


agr 


you,  and, 


on 


» II'  IF  IP 


pay  out 


»  H'  H»  H'  shewn 


»  IP  \o 
«  H<  cash 


i 


^  . 


£U 


l.HCIl'NIS   iK\   III  SOI. S 


M 


'V\ 


I  ill 


HI! 


the  whole,  front  all  iminniT  of  extremities,  accusations  and 
confusi«)ns,  in  defence  of  that  !  " 

Really,  it  seems  to  ine  the  one  reas«)n  which  could  justify 
revolting;,  this  of  the  I'uritans.      It  has  been  the  soul  of  ail 
jijst  revolt',  amonjj  men.      Not  //w«i,'<'  alone  produced  even 
the  l-'rench    Kevolution  ;  no,  but  the  feelini,'  of  the  insu)- 
portable  all-i>ervadin;;    /;?/>,//,»,',/ which   had  now  endxuliiil 
itself  in   nunj,'er,  in  universal  material   Scaicity  and  Non- 
entity, and   thereby  become   i>ii/is/^itt,tMy  false   in   the  eyes 
lo  of  all'l     We  will  leave  the  Ki^hteenth  century  with  its  'lib- 
erty to  tax  itself.'     We  will  not  astonish  ourselves  that  the 
meaninjj  of  such  men  as  the   I'uritans  remained  dim  to  it. 
To  men  who  believe  in  no  reality  at  all,  how  shall  a  ir,il 
human  soul,  the  intensest  of   all   realities,    as  it  were  the 
Voice  of  this  world's  Maker  still  sjjeakin;,'  to  w.f,  -    be  in- 
telligible?    What  it  cannot  reduce  into  < onstitulional  doc- 
trines relative  to  'taxing,'  or  other  iIk-  like   material  inter- 
est, gross,  palpable  tf)  the  sense,  such  a  century  will  needs 
reject  as  an  amori^hous  heap  ot  rubbish.      Ilampdeiis,  I'yms 
20  and  Ship-numey  will  be  the  theme  ot   much  constitutional 
eloquence,  striving  to  be  fervid  ;       which  will  glitter,  if  not 
as  fire  does,  then  as  i,y  does:  and   the   irreducible  (  rom- 
well  will  remain  a  chaotic  ni.iss  of  'madness,"  '  hypocrisy,'  - 
and  much  else. 

From  of  old,  I  will  confess,  this  theory  of  Cromwell'^ 
falsity  has  been  incredible  to  me.  Nay  I  cannot  believe 
the  like,  of  any  (Ireat  Man  wiiatever.  Multitudes  ot  (i«Mt 
Men  figure  in  History  as  false  seltish  men ;  but  if  we  •ill 
consider  it.  they  arc  but  /;'//^«  for  us,  unintelligible 
30  shadows;  we  do  not  see  into  them  as  men  that  could  have 
existed  at  all.  .\  superficial  unbelieving  generation  only, 
with  no  eye  but  for  the  surfaces  and  semblances  of  things, 
could  form  such  notions  of  (Ireat   Men.     fan  a  great  .soul 


II'  11=  II'  'M.11I1U 


-  11'  IF  ir  -llyiJucrisy' 


I llh    III  Ai>       \    AlXi, 


l\\ 


)c  I 


)o.ssi 


Ml-  witlnHit  .1  ii'iisiiii,!'  in  it,  tin*  t-sscncc  of  all  rni/ 


souls,  >;riMt  or  mhiII  '  N",  wt-  cannot  hgiire  i'mmwell  ns 
;i  F'llsity  :\n«l  Kntiiily  ;  tlu-  longer  I  study  him  and  his 
career.  I  lu-lifvi-  this  the  iis«..  Why  should  we  ?  There  is 
nn  evidenre  of  it.  Is  it  nut  str.uim'  that,  after  all  the 
int»imt  lins  of  eahimny  this  mm  his  heen  snbtert  tn.  after 
beiif^  represented  as  the  very  prinre  of  liars,  who  never,  or 
hardly  ever,  spoke  tnilli,  l)tit  always  some  ctinnin'^  mun- 
terfeit  of  truth,  there  should  not  yi-t  have  hocn  one  false- 
liof>d  broiijfht  clearly  lH>me  to  him  ?■  A  prince  of  li.irs,  and  lo 
no  lie  spoken  by  him.  Not  one  that  I  eould  yet  ^el  sij^ht 
of.  It  is  like  I'oeoeke  askin;^  (Irotiu^.  Where  is  your /■/-''y' 
of  Mahomet's  l'i;4eon  .'  No  proof  I  I.et  us  leave  all  these 
calumnious  chimeras,  as  chimeras  oii;^lit  to  he  left.  They 
are  not  portraits  of  the  man  ;  they  are  distracted  jihantasms 
of  liim,  the  joint  product  of  hatred  ami  darkness. 

|,ookiii4  at  the  man's  life  with  our  own  eyes,  it  seems  to 
me.  a  very  dillcrenl  hvpothesis  sn;;;;ests  itself.  What  little 
we  know  of  his  earlier  oliscure  years,  distorted  as  it  has 
come  down  to  us,  does  it  not  all  betoken  an  eirnest,  atfet-  20 
tionate.'  situert;  kind  of  mm?  His  nervous  melancholic 
temper.iUK  nt  intlic.Ues  r.ither  a  seriousness  l'i>  deei)  for 
him.      (  )f  ■'  those  stories  ot  '.Spectres';  of  the  white  Spectre 

1  II'  il'  iiuarty. 

-'-11'  ^'<)u  rL-niuniliiT  that  story  of  lii>  h.ivint;  ;i  visii.n  of  tin-  Kvil 
.S|iiiit,  |)rLilii  \w<^  that  lu-  woulil  Ix-  SovcrclL;!)  of  Ijifjl.ind.  ;iii<l  so  forth. 
In  l.ro.ifl  (laylit;ht,  >oiiu:  huge  wliiti-  Spo  trr.  wliii  h  lie  took  to  he  tlic 
lli\il.  with  pittLTii  itur.il  inoiiiiioiis  of  >omi'  >oit.,lH'\vs  it-rlf  tn  liim  ;  tlie 
Koyali-'t^  111. uK  iininrn-''  K.ihKk-  ahoiit  it;  hut  ai)itrl  from  tli>ir  >])t  1  illa- 
tions, \V'  ,  ,111  si.piM.^t.-  this  story  f'f  the  Sptttrf  to  Kf  true.  Thin  there  are 
afterwards  tho-t  hjpoLhondriai  al  vi>ion- :  th.e  lioUnrstnt  for:  ( )livir 
imaf;inin{;  iIm!  ••  t!i"  -tieple  of  I  luntint,'(hin  was  about  to  tumlilt-  on  him." 

i-  'Kivin-?  a  \isi.>i 


li'  V. 


:L-iii;-m")rr 


irfdi(  tini;  that  he  would  lie  Sovereign  ' 


that 
Id  U 


f  hi- 


onu- 


Spirit, 
lylinht, 
white   Spiitre.  which    he   took  to  he  tln'  Divil,  with  priter- 


.f  i:i 


i^laiK 


1.     In 


th.-  I- 
hroa( 


'i 


:'  I 


*i 


i\ 


!  , 
1' 


ii.itui.il  munition.-,  of  some  sort,  shews  it.'-rlf  to  him:  it 


a  umversa 


244 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


in  broad  daylight,  predicting  that  he  should  be  King  of 
England,  we  are  not  bound  to  believe  much  ;  —  probably 
no  more  than  of  the  other  black  Spectre,  or  Devil  in  person, 
to  whom  the  Officer  saw  him  sell  himself  before  Worces- 
ter Fight !  But  the  mournful,  over-sensitive,  hypochondriac 
humour  of  Oliver,  in  his  young  years,  is  otherwise  indispu- 
tably known.  The  Huntingdon  Physician  told  Sir  Philip 
Warwick  himself,  He  had  often  been  sent  for  at  midnight ; 
Mr.  Cromwell  was  full  of  hypochondria,  thought  himself 

10  near  dying,  and  "had  fancies  about  the  Town-cross." 
These'  things  are  significant.-  Such  an  excitable  deep- 
feeling  nature,  in  that  rugged  stubborn  strength  -'  of  his,' 
is  not  the  symptom  of  falsehood ;  it  is  the  symptom  and 
promise  of  quite  other  than  falsehood  ^ ! 

The  young  Oliver  is  sent  to  study  Law ;  falls,  or  *  is  said 
to  have  fallen,*  for  a  little  period,  into  some  of  the  dissipa- 
tions of  youth;  but  if'  so,'  speedily  repents,  abandons  all 
this :  not  much  above  twenty,  he  is  married,  settled  as  an 
altogether  grave  and  quiet  man.     '  He "  pays-back '  what 

20  money  he  had  won  at  gambling,'*  says*  the  story";—  he 
does  not  think  any  gain  of  that  kind  could  be  really  his. 
It  is  very  interesting,  very  natural,  this  'conversion,'  as 
they  well  name  it ;  this  awakening  of  a  great  true  soul  from 
the  wordly  slough,  to  see  into  the  awful  truth  of  things ;  — 
to  see  that  Time  and  its  shows  '■'  all  rested  on  Eternity,  and 


story  of  those  times  ;  and,  apart  from  all  Royalist  ami  other  speculations 
on  it,  we  can  well  suppose  this  story  of  the  Spectre  to  bo  true.  Then 
there  are  afterwards  those  other  hypochondriacal  visions :  the  Doctor 
sent  for;  Oliver  'has  fancies  about  the  town-cross  of  Huntingdon.' 

1  11^  The  '' ''  no  marks  of  quotation  in  W  IP 

2  II' bulk  "  IP  UMP  pays  back 

!*  *  H'  his;  in  other  words,  a  soul  of  such  intensity,  such  sensibility, 
with  all  its  strength  !  "  "  not  i»  H'  IP 

**notinlVW  9  H' IP  shews 

»  »  not  in  IV  H» 


THE   HERO  AS  KING 


245 


this  poor  Earth  of  ours  was  the  threshold  either  of  fieaven 
or  of  Hell !  Oliver's  life  at  St'  Fves  and  '  Ely,  as  a  sober 
industrious  Farmer,  is  it  not  altogether  as  that  of  a  true 
and  ^  devout  man  ?  He  has  renounced  the  world  and  its 
ways ;  its  prizes  are  not  the  thing  that  can  enrich  him.  He 
tills  the  earth  ;  he  reads  his  Bible  ;  daily  assembles  his  ser- 
vants round  him  to  worship  God.  He  comforts  persecuted 
ministers,  is  fond  of  preachers;  nay  can  himself  preach, — 
exhorts  his  neighbours  to  be  wise,  to  redeem  the  time.  In 
all  this  what '  hypocris)-,' '  ambition,' '  cant,'  or  other  falsity  ?  lo 
The  man's  hopes,  I  do  believe,  were  fixed  on  the  other 
Higher  World  ;  his  aim  to  get  well  t/tithcr,  by  walking  well 
through  his  humble  course  in  tins  world.  He  courts  no 
notice:  what  could  notice  here  do  for  him?  'Ever  in  his 
great  Taskmaster's  eye.'" 

It  is  striking,  too,  how  he  comes-out  once  into  public 
view ;  he,  since  no  other  is  willing  to  come :  in  resistance 
to  a  public  grievance.  I  mean,  in  that  matter  of  the 
Bedford  Fens.  No  one  else  will  go  to  law  with  Authority ; 
therefore  he  will.  That  matter  once  settled,  he  returns  20 
back  into  obscurity,  to  his  Bible  and  his  Plough,  '(iain 
influence  ' .'  His  influence  is  the  most  legitimate  ;  derived 
from  personal  knowledge  of  him,  as  a  just,  religious,  reason- 
able and  determined  man.  In  this  way  he  has  lived  tHl 
past  fort}- ;  old  age  is  now  in  view  of  him,  and  the  earnest 
portal  of  Death  and  Eternity  ;  it  was  at  this  point  that  he 
suddenly  became  'ambitious ' !  I  do  not  interpret  his  Par- 
liamentary mission  in  that  way  ! 

His  successes  in  Parliament,  his  successes  through  the 
war,  are  honest  successes  of  a  brave  man  ;  wh3  has  more  3c 
resolution  in  the  heart  of  him,  more  light  in  the  head  of 
him  than  other  men.     His   prayers  to  God;  his  spoken 

^^  not  in  II'  2  „ot  in  H'  IP 

^  HO  paragraph  in  H' 


■s  1 


i\- 


il'i 


246 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


thanks  to  the  God  of  Victory,  who  had  preserved  him  safe, 
and  carried  him  forward  so  far,  through  the  furious  clash 
of  a  world  all  set  in  conflict,  through  desperate-looking 
envelopments  at  Dunbar;  through  the  death-hail  of  so 
many  battles  ;  mercy  after  mercy  ;  to  the  'crowning  mercy  ' 
of  Worcester  Fight :  all  this  is  good  and  genuine  for  a  deep- 
hearted  C'alvinistic  Cromwell.  Only  to  vain  unbelieving 
Cavaliers,  worshipping  not  Cod  but  their  own  'lovelocks,' 
frivolities  and  formalities,  living  quite  apart  from  contem- 

10  plations  of  God,  living  uuthotit  God  in  the  world,  need  it 
seem  hypocritical. 

Nor  will  his  participation  in  the  King's  death  involve 
him  in  condemnation  with  us.  It  is  a  stern  business  killin|r 
of  a  K-ing !  15ut  if  you  once  go  to  war  with  him,  it  lies 
there ;  this  and  all  else  lies  there.  Once  at  war,  you  have 
made  wager  of  battle  with  him  :  it  is  he  to  die,  or  else  you. 
Reconciliation  is  problematic ;  may  be  possible,  or,  far 
more  likely,  is  impossible.  It  is  now  pretty  generally 
admitted  that  the  Parliament,  having  vantpiished  Charles 

20  First,  had  no  way  of  making  any  tenable  arrangement  with 
him.  The  large  Presbyterian  party,  apprehensive  now  of 
the  Independents,  were  most  an.xious  to  do  so;  anxious 
indeed  as  for  their  own  existence  ;  but  it  could  not  be. 
The  unhappy  Charles,  in  those  iinal  Hampton-Court  nego- 
tiations, shows'  himself  as  a  man  fatally  incapable  of  being 
dealt  with.  A  man  who,  once  for  all,  could  not  and  would 
not  «//(/( yjA?//*/;  -whose  thought  did  not  in  any  measure 
represent  to  him  the  real  fact  of  the  matter ;  nay  worse, 
whose  word  did  not  at  all  represent  his  thought.     We  may 

30  say  this  of  him  w  ithout  cruelty,  with  deep  pity  rather :  but 
it  is  true  and  undeniable.  Forsaken  there  of  all  but  the 
name  of  Kingship,  he  still,  finding  himself  treated  with 
outward  respect  as  a  King,  fancied  that  he  might  play-otf- 

1  II'  II-  IP  shews  ^li'  11=  IF  play  off 


.1 


THE  j//:a'(>  as  a/xc 


247 


party  against  party,  and  snui-glu  himself  into  his  old  power 
by  deceiving  l,oth.      Ahis,  they  botii  ./iscoier,,/  that  he  was 
deceiving  them.     A  man  whose  avv,/  will  not  inform  you 
at  all  what  he  means  or  will  do,  is  not  a  man  you  can  bar- 
gain with.    Vou  must  get  out  of  that  man's  wav,  or  put  him 
out  of  yours!      The   I'resbyterians,  in  their  desi)air,  were 
still  for  believing  Charles,  though  found  false,  unbelievable 
again  and  again.     Not  so  (  romwell :  "  For  all  our  lighting," 
says  he,  "  we  are  to  have  a  little  bit  of  paper  ?  "  *  No  !  — ' 
'   In  fact,  everywhere  we  have  to  note  the  decisive  practical  .0 
eye  of  this  man  ;  how  he  drives  towards  the  practical  and 
practicable ;  has  a  genuine  insight  into  what  is  fact.     Such 
an  intellect,  I  maintain,  does  not  belong  to  a  false  man: 
the  false  man  sees  false  shows,'  plausibilities,  expediencies: 
the  true   man    is   needed   to  disc     n  even  practical  truth. 
Cromweirs  advice  about   the   Parliament's  Army,  early  in 
the  contest,  How  they  were  to  dismiss  their  city-tapsters, 
flimsy    riotous    persons,   and    choose    substantial    yeomen, 
whose  heart  was  in  the  work,  to  be  soldiers  for  them  :   this 
is  advice  by  a  man  who  s<m'.     J'act  answers,  if  you  see  into  20 
Fact!      Cromwell's  /nmsUes  were  the  embodiment  of  this 
insight  of  his;  men   fearing  (Jod;  and  without  any  other 
fear.      No  more  conclusively  genuine   set  of  fighters   ever 
trod  the  soil  of   England,  or  of  any  otlier  land. 

Neither  will  we  blame  greatly  that  word  of  Cromwell's  to 
them  ;  which  was  so  blamed  :  "  If  the  King  should  meet 
me  in  battle,  I  would  kill  the  King."  Why  not?  ihese 
words  were  spoken  to  men  who  stood  as  before  a  Higher 
than  Kings.  They  had  set  more  than  their  own  lives  on 
the  cast.  The  Parliament  may  call  it,  in  ottkial  language,  30 
a  fighting  '/v-  the  King;'  but  we,  for  our  share,  cannot  "^ 
understand  that.  To  us  it  is  no  dilettante  work,  no  sleek 
officiality  ;  it  is  sheer  rough  death  and  earnest.     Iliey  have 


i) 


1 


1  IV  II 


lews 


,1 

i  I 


248 


LECTURES   ON  HEROES 


brought  it  to  the  calling-forth  '  of  War;  horrid  internecine 
fight,  man  grappling  with  man  in  tire-eyed  rage,  —  the 
////77/<7/ element  in  man  called  forth,  to  try  it  by  that !  Do 
that  therefore ;  since  that  is  the  thing  to  be  done.  —  The 
successes  of  Cromwell  seem  to  me  a  very  natural  thing! 
Since  he  was  not  shot  in  battle,  they  were  an  inevitable 
thing.  That  such  a  man,  with  the  eye  to  see,  with  the 
heart  to  dare,  should  advance,  from  post  to  post,  from 
victory  to  victory,  till  the  Huntingdon  Farmer  became,  by 

10  whatever  name  you  might  call  him,  the  acknowledged 
Strongest  Man  in  England,  virtually  the  King  of  England, 
requires  no  magic  to  explain  it !  — 

Truly  it  is  a  sad  thing  for  a  people,  as  for  a  man,  to  fall 
into  Scepticism,  into  dilettantism,  insincerity ;  not  to  know 
a  Sincerity  when  they  see  it.  For  this  world,  and  for  all 
worlds,  what  curse  is  so  fatal  ?  The  heart  lying  dead,  the 
eye  cannot  see.  What  intellect  remains  is  merely  the  vul- 
pine intellect.  That  a  true  King  be  sentjhernjs_of_small 
use ;  they  do  not  know  him  when  sent.     They  say  scorn- 

20  fully.  Is  this  your  King-i" — TKeTHero  wastes  hjs  heroic 
faculty  in  bootless  contradiction  from  t^he  unworthy ;  and 
can  accomplish  Httle.  For  himself  he  does  accomplish  a 
heroic  life,  \vhich  is  much,  which  is  all;  but  for  the  world 
he  accomplisTies  comparatively  nothing.  The  wild  rude 
Sincerity,  direcT  fromNature,  iF  not  glib  in  answering 
from  the  witness-box :  in  your  small-debt  pie-pincder  court, 
he  is  scouted  as  a  counterfeit.  The  vulpine  intellect  'de- 
tects '  him.  F'pr  being  a  man  worth  any  thousand  men,  the 
response  your  Knox,  your  Cromwell  getspTs  an  argument 

30  for  two  centuries  whether  he  was  a  man  at  all.  God's 
greatest  gift  to  this  Earth  is  sneeringly  flung  away.  The 
miraculous  talisman  is  a  paltry  plated  coin,  not  fit  to  pass 
in  the  shops  as  a  common  guinea. 

»  W  H»  H^  calling  forth 


THE  J/EKO  A.^  KIXG 


249 


Lamentable  this!     I  say,  this  must  he  remedied.     Till 
this  be  remedied  in  some  measure,  there  is  nothing  reme- 
died.    *  Detect  quacks  '  ?     Ncs  do,  for  Heaven's  sake  ;  but 
know  withal  the  men  that  are  to  be  trusted!     Till  „e  know 
that,   what   is  all  our  knowledge;   how   shall   we  even  so 
much   as   'detect'?     For'    the    vulpine    sharpness,   which 
considers   itself    to   be    knowledge,    and    'detects'  in  that 
fashion,  IS  far  mistaken.      Dupes  indeed  are  many:  but,  of 
all  dupes,  there  is  none  so  fatallv  situated  as  he  who  lives 
m  undue  terror  of  being  duped.     The  world  does  exist ;  the  .o 
world  has  truth  in  it,  or  it  would  not  e.xist !      I'irst  recog- 
nise what   is  true,  we  shall  ///,//  discern  wjiat  is  false  ;  and 
properly  never  till  then. 

'  Know  the  men  that  are  to  be  trusted  : '  alas,  this  is  yet, 
m   these  days,  very  far  from  us,      The  sincere  alone  can 
recognise  sincerity.     Not    a    Hero   only   is  needed,  but  a 
world  ht  for  him  ;  a  world  not  of  Wihh  .-the  Hero  comes 
almost  m  vain  to  it  otherwise  !     Ves,  it  is  far  from  us :  but 
It  must  come ;  thank  God,  it  is  visibly  coming.     Till  it  do 
come,  what  have  we  }    Ballot-boxes,  suffrages,  l-rench  Revo-  20 
lutions:  —  if  we  are  as  Valets,  and  do  not  know  the  Hero 
when  we  see  him,  what  good  are  all  these  '.    A  heroic  (  rom- 
well  comes;  and  for  a  hundred-and-tifty  •'  years  he  cannot 
have  a  vote  from  us.    Why,  the  insincere^  unbelieving  world 
is  the  natural  property  of  the  Quack,  and  of  the  I'ather  of 
quacks •■'  and  quackeries"!     Misery,  confusion,  un veracity 
are  alone  possible  there.     By  ballot-boxes  we  alter  the  figure 
of  our  Quack;  but  the  substance  of  him  continues.     The 
Valet-World  has  to  be  governed  by  the  Sham-Hero,  by  the 
King  merely  dressed  in  King-gear.      It    is   his;   he   is  its!  30 
In*^  brief,^  one  of  two  things:    We   shall   either   learn   to 


'  fiot  in  W  IF 

2  H' IP  If  hundred  and  fifty 

*  5  not  ill  W 


■  II'  Ouaiks 
MI'  ( )uackerics 


I-  n 


^f 


t  ■   '■';  I 

! 


2S0 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


I 


know  a  Hero,  a  true  (lovernor  and  Captain,  somewhat 
better,  when  we  see  him;  or  else  go  on  to  be  forever 
governed  by  the  Unheroic ;  — had  we  ballot-boxes  clatter- 
ing at  every  street-corner,  there  were  no  remedy  in  these. 

Poor  Cromwell,  —  great  Cromwell !  The  inarticulate 
Prophet ;  Prophet  who  could  not  speak.  Rude,  confused, 
struggling  to  utter  himself,  with  his  savage  depth,  with  his 
wild  sincerity;  and  he  looked  so  strange,  among  the  ele- 
gant Euphemisms,'  dainty  little  Falklands,  didactic  Chilling- 

lo  worths,  diplomatic  Clarendons  !  Consider  him.  An  outer 
hull  of  chaotic  confusion,  visions  of  the  Devil,  nervous 
dreams,  almost  semi-madness ;  and  yet  such  a  clear  deter- 
minate man's-energy  working  in  the  heart  of  that.  A  kind 
of  chaotic  man.  The  ray  as  of  pure  starlight  and  fire, 
working  in  such  an  element  of  boundless  hypochondria,  //;/- 
formed  black  of  darkness !  And  yet  withal  this  hypochon- 
dria, what  was  it  but  the  very  greatness  of  the  man  ?  Th<- 
depth  and  tenderness  of  his  wild  affections :  the  quantity 
of  sympathy  he  had  with  things,  —  the  quantity  of  insight  he 

20  would  yet  get  into  the  heart  of  things,  the  mastery  he  would 
yet  get  over  things:  this  was  his  hypochondria.  The  man's 
"  misery,  as  man's  misery  always  does,  came  of  his  greatness. 
Samuel  Johnson  too  is  that  kind  of  man.  Sorrow-stricken, 
half-distracted  ;  the  wide  element  of  mournful  black  envel 
oping  him,  -wide  as  the  world.  It  is  the  character  of 
a  prophetic  man  ;  a  man  with  his  whole  soul  seeing,  ami 
struggling  to  see. 

On    this   ground,   too,   I   explain  to    myself  Cromwell's 
reputed    confusion    of   speech.      To    himself    the    internal 

30  meaning  was  sun-clear;    but    the  material  with  which  h- 

was  to  clothe  it  in  utterance  was  not  there.      He  had  Ihwi 

silent ;  a  great  unnamed  sea  of  Thought  round  him  all  his 

days  ;  and  in  his  way  of  life  little  call  to  attempt  naming  or 

I  II'  11=  IP  Euphuisms 


i'l't 


THE   IfERO  AS  A'/XG 


251 


Uttering  that.  With  his  sharp  power  of  vision,  resolute 
power  of  action,  I  doubt  not  he  could  have  learned  to  write 
Books  withal,  and  speak  fluently  enoujjh  ;  he  did  harder 
things  than  writing  of  Hooks.  This  kind  of  man  is  pre- 
cisely he  who  is  tit  for  doing  manfully  all  things  you  will 
set  him  on  doing.  Intellect  is  not  speaking  and  logicising  ' ; 
it  is  seeing  and  ascertaining.  Virtue,  I'ir-tus,  manhood,' 
hero-hooA,  is  not  fair-spoken-  immaculate  regularity;  it  is 
first  of  all,  what  the  Germans  well  name  it,  Tu)^en,i  {Tau^end, 
do7i>-\ng  or  Z>^;//4-//-tiness''),  Courage  and  the  Faculty  to  do.  ro 
This  basis  of  the  matter  Cromwell  had  in  him. 

One  understands  moreover  how,  though  he  cou'd  not 
speak  in  Parliament,  he  might /m*.//,  rhapsodic  preaching; 
above  all,  how  he  might  be  great  in  extempore  prayer. 
These  are  the  free  outpouring  utterances  of  what  is  in  the 
heart:  method  is  not  required  in  them;  warmth,  depth, 
sincerity  are  all  that  is  required.  CromweH's  habit  of 
prayer  is  i  notable  feature  of  him.  All  his  great  enter- 
prises were  commenced  with  prayer.  In  dark  inextricable- 
looking  difficulties,  his  Officers  and  he  used  to  assemble,  20 
and  pray  alternately,  for  hours,  for  days,  till  some  definite 
resolution  rose  among  them,  some  'door  of  hope,'  as  they 
would  name  it,  disclosed  itself.  (  onsider  that.  In  tears,  in 
fervent  prayers,  and  cries  to  the  great  (]od,  to  have  pity  on 
them,  to  make  His  light  shine  before  them.  They,  armed 
Soldiers  of  Chri.t,  is  they  felt  themselves  to  be;  a  little 
band  of  Christian  brothers,  who  had  drawn  the  sword 
against  a  great  black  devouring  world  not  Christian,  but 
Mammonish,  Devilish,  —  they  cried  to  Cod  in  their  straits, 
in  their  extreme  need,  not  to  forsake  the  Cause  that  was  30 
His.     The  light  which  now  rose  upon  them, —how  could 

^  II'  II-  logiti/iiig 
MP  HMP  fairspoken 
»  H'  H=  H^  i9^/<f/itiness 


il 


I        *  V 


252 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


-! 


a  human  soul,  by  any  me.ins  ;it  all,  get  better  lijjlit?  Was 
not  the  purpose  so  formed  like  to  be  precisely  the  best, 
wisest,  the  one  to  be  iollowed  without  hesitation  any  more  ? 
To  them  it  was  as  the  shining;  of  Heaven's  own  Splendour 
in  the  waste-howlinj;  darkness;  the  I'illarof  Fire  by  night, 
that  was  to  guide  th(;m  on  their  desolate  perilous  way. 
Was  it  not  such  ?  Can  a  man's  soul,  to  this  hour,  get  guid- 
ance by  any  other  method  than  intrinsically  by  that  same, 
—  devout  prostration  of  the  ear  lest  struggling  soul  before 

10  the  Highest,  the  Giver  of  all  Light ;  be  such/>r(?ir/-  a  spoken, 
articulate,  or  be  it  a  voiceless,  inarticulate  one  ?  'There  is 
no  other  method.  •  Hypocrisy  '  ?  One  begins  to  weary  of 
all  that.  They  who  call  it  so,  have  no  right  to  speak  on 
such  matters.  They  never  formed  a  purpose,  what  one  can 
call  a  purpose.  They  went  about  balancing  expediencies, 
plausibilities ;  gathering  votes,  advices ;  they  never  were 
alone  with  the  truth  of  a  thing  at  all.  —  Cromwell's  prayers 
were  likely  to  be  'eloquent,'  and  much  more  than  that. 
His  was  the  heart  of  a  man  who  <"f'«/(/ pray. 

20  But  indeed  his  actual  Speeches,  I  apprehend,  were  not 
nearly  so  ineloquent,  incondite,  as  they  look.  We  find  he 
was,  what  all  speakers  aim  to  be,  an  impressive  speaker, 
even  in  Parliantent ;  one  who,  from  the  first,  had  weight. 
With  that  rude  passionate  voice  of  his,  he  was  always  un- 
derstood to  mean  something,  and  men  wished  to  know  what. 
He  disregarded  eloquence,  nay  despised  and  disliked  it : 
spoke  always  without  premeditation  of  the  words  he  was  to 
use.  The  Reporters,  too,  in  those  days  seem  to  have  been 
singularly  candid  ;  and  to  have  given  the  Printer  precisely 

30  what  they  found  on  their  own  note-paper.  And  withal, 
what  a  strange  proof  is  it  of  Cromwell's  being  the  premedi- 
tative  ever-calculating  hypocrite,  acting  a  play  before  the 
world.  That  to  the  last  he  took  no  more  charge  of  his 
Speeches !     How  came  he  not  to  study  his  words  a  little, 


THE    ///-h'O   AS  A/A-i; 


253 


U'tore  flinging  thum  out  to  the  public  ?     If  the  words  were 
true  words,  they  could  be  left  to  shift  for  themselves. 

Hut  with  regard  to  Cromwell's  'lying,'  we  will  mnke  one 
remark.  Tliis,  I  suppose,  or  something  like  this,  to  have 
been  the  nature  of  it.  .MI  parties  found  themselves  de- 
ceived in  him  ;  each  party  understood  him  to  be  meaning 
//lis,  heard  him  even  say  so,  and  behold  he  turns-out '  to 
have  been  meaning  //i,rf .'  He  was,  cry  they,  the  chief  of 
liars.  Hut  now,  intrinsically,  is  not  all  this  the  inevitable 
fortune,  not  of  a  false  man  in  such  times,  but  simply  of  a  lo 
superior  man  .'  Such  a  man  must  have  n-thrnos  in  him. 
If  he  walk  wearing  his  heart  upon  his  sleeve  for  daws  to 
peck  at,  his  journey  will  not  extend  far!  There  is  no  use 
for  any  man's  taking-up  -  his  abode  in  a  house  built  of  glass. 
.V  man  always  is  to  be  himself  the  judge  how  much  of  his 
mind  he  will  show  ■■  to  other  men  ;  even  to  those  he  would 
have  work  along  with  him.  There  are  impertinent  inquiries 
made:  your  rule  is,  to  leave  the  inquirer  ////informed  on  that 
matter;  not,  if  you  can  help  it,  w/.vinformed,  but  precisely 
as  dark  as  he  was !  This,  could  one  hit  the  right  phrase  of  20 
response,  is  what  the  wise  and  faithful  man  would  aim  to 
answer  in  such  a  case. 

OomweH,  no  doubt  of  it,  spoke  often  in  the  dialect  of 
small  subaltern  parties  :  uttered  to  them  a/</A/of  his  mind. 
Kach  little  party  thought  him  all  its  own.  Hence  their 
rage,  one  and  all,  to  find  him  not  of  their  party,  but  of  his 
own  party !  Was  it  his  blame  .»  At  all  seasons  of  his  his- 
tory he  must  have  felt,  among  such  [leople,  how,  if  he  ex- 
plained to  them  the  deeper  insight  he  had,  they  must  either 
hive  shuddered  aghast  at  it,  or  believing  it,  their  own  little  30 
compact  hypothesis  must  have  gone  wholly  to  wreck.  They 
could  not  have  worked  in  his  province  any  more ;  nay  per- 


»H'  IP  n'tirnsout 


3  IV  W  W  shew 


-  II'  IFII'ukingup 


15     -£tl 


254 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


haps  they  could  not  now  h.ivc  worked  in  their  own  province. 
It  is  the  inevitable  position  of  a  great  man  among  small 
men.  Small  men,  most  active,  useful,  are  to  be  seen  every- 
where, whose  whole  activity  de|K:nd.s  on  some  conviction 
which  to  you  is  palpably  a  limited  one;  imperfect,  what  we 
call  an  I'nor,  Uut  would  it  be  a  kindness  always,  is  it  a 
duty  always  or  often,  to  disturb  them  in  that  ?  Many  a 
man,  doing  loud  work  in  the  world,  stands  only  on  some 
thin  traditionality,  conventionality  ;  to  him  indubitable,  to 

lo  you  incredible  :  break  that  beneath  him,  he  sinks  to  endless 
depths!  ••  I  might  have  my  hand  full  of  truth,"  said  Fon- 
tenelle,  '*and  open  only  my  little  finger." 

And  if  tiiis  be  the  fact  even  in  matters  of  doctrine,  how 
much  more  in  all  departments  of  practice  !  He  that  cannot 
withal  keep  his  niiiiii  to  />iws,-//  cannot  practise  any  consid- 
erable thing  whatever.  And  we  call  it  'dissimulation,'  all 
this?  What  would  you  think  of  calling  the  general  of  an 
army  a  dissembler  because  he  did  not  tell  every  corporal 
and  private  soldier,  who  pleased  to  put  the  question,  what 

20  his  thoughts  were  about  everything?  —  Cromwell,  I  should 
rather  say,  managed  all  this  in  a  manner  we  must  admire 
for  its  perfection.  An  endless  vor*  of  such  questioning 
•corporals'  rolled  confusedly  roun  \  \  through  his  whole 
course;    whom   he  did  ansvver.  must  have  been  as  a 

great  true-seeing  man  that  he  managed  this  too.  Not  one 
proved  falsehood,  as  I  said ;  not  one  !  Of  what  man  that 
ever  wound  himself  through  such  a  coil  of  things  will  you 
say  so  much  ?  — 


It 


But  in  fact  there  are  two  errors,  widely  prevalent,  which 

y.  ,  ervert  to  the  very  basis  our  judgments  formed  about  such 

men  as  Cromwell;  about  their  'ambition,'  'falsity,'   and 

suchlike.'      The  first  is  what  I  might  call  substituting  the 

1  11'  IP  IV  such  like 


m'M 


7//A  //hko  .IS  A/xi; 


1^^ 


f^oal  of  their  career  for  the  course  and  starlini^-point  of  it. 
The  vulvar  Historian  of  a  (  roinweil  fancies  that  he  had 
determined  on  being  I'rotector  of  Knjjiand,  at  the  time 
when  he  was  ploiijjhing  the  marsh  lands  of  (  ami)rid;;Lshire. 
His  career  hiy  all  niappedoul  '  :  a  proj^rain  of  the  whole 
drama;  which  he  then  step  l)>  step  dramatically  iinfoUkd, 
with  all  manner  of  cuniiin;;,  deceptive  dramaturgy,  as  he 
went  on,  -  the  hollow,  scheminj; 'Yttok/jitj/v,  or  I'lay-actor, 
that  he  was!  This  is  a  radical  perversion  ;  all  hut  univer- 
sal in  such  cases.  .\nd  think  for  an  instant  how  dilterent  lo 
the  fact  is  !  How  much  does  one  of  us  foresee  of  his  own 
life  ?  Short  way  ahead  of  us  it  is  all  dim  ;  an  ////wound 
skein  of  possibilities,  of  apprehensions,  attemptabilities, 
va-jue-loominji  hopes.  This  Cromw.-il  had  not  his  life 
lying  all  in  that  fashion  of  l'roj,'rain,  which  he  needed 
then,  with  that  unfathomable  cunning  of  his,  only  to  enact 
dramatically,  scene  after  scene!  Not  so.  We  see  it  so; 
but  to  him  it  was  in  i.  measure  so.  What  absurdities 
would  fall-away^  of  themselves,  were  this  one  undeni  ii)lc 
fact  kept  honestly  in  view  by  History  !  Historians  indeed  20 
will  tell  you  that  they  do  keep  it  in  view  ;  but  look 
whether  such  is  practically  the  fact!  Vulgar  History,  as 
in  this  {'romwell's  case,  omits  it  altogether;  even  the  best 
kinds  of  History  only  remember  it  ncnv  and  then.  To 
remember  it  duly  with  rigorous  perfection,  as  in  the  fact  it 
stooii,  requires  indeed  a  rare  faculty  ;  rare,  nay  impossible. 
.\  very  Shakspeare  for  faculty  ;  or  more  than  .Shaksi)eare  ; 
who  could  Ohut  a  brother  man's  biograjihy,  see  with  tlie 
brother  man's  eyes  at  all  points  of  his  course  what  things 
//f  saw  ;  in  short,  kmn^'  his  course  and  him,  as  few  'Histo-  50 
rians'  a^e  like  to  do.  Half  or  more  of  all  the  thick-plied 
perversions  which  distort  our  image  of  Cromwell,  will  dis- 
a).pcar,  if  we  honestly  so  much  as  trv  to  represent  tiiem  so  : 


\ 


H'  11-  H^  mapped  out 


WW  II 'fall  .iway 


250 


l/iC/'fA'AS  OX  //f-:A'0/-:s 


i: 


kl  MCiiience,  as  they  r.r/v,    not   in  tlit-  lump,  .is  ihcy  arc 
thrj'Ati  down  '  licfurc  us. 

Ill  I  .1     .'cond  error,  which  I  think  the  cenerality  commit, 
refers  •       his  same 'ambition*  itself.     U  c  ex  x;,'-rr  ite  the 
am  I  li.i,     r  (ireat  .Men;  we  mistake  what  the  nature  of  it 
i'-      <i  •  't    Men  are  not  ambitious  in   that   cerise;    he  is  a 
S.I  1,1     wu;    man  that  is  ambitious  so.      !•  x.miin*-  the  man 
wf   •  i.-'.     ,1    misery  i)ecause  he  docs  n..;  shine  above  other 
m<  I      V  'h,  ...jes  al  out  oroducinj;  himself,  pruriency  anxious 
10  abc  .    Ins  ^'if,     ,,'!  ,    ;inis;  strugj,'bn;:  t<>  force  everybod), 
as  j;  ',\'.r.-  i  -  .  M  ,:;  everybody  for  (lod's  sake,  to  .acknowledj^a. 
him  I  grc.t  ■      i,  and  set  him  over  the  heads  of  men  !    .Such 
a  criture   s       ■  .m<j  the  wretchedest  sij;hts  seen  under  this 
sun      .\  ,i;n,tt  iii.n  .'     .V  |)oor  morbid  prurient  empty  man, 
fitt<r  for  the  war.!  of  a  hospital,  than   for  a  llirone  amonjj 
men.      I  advise  you  to  keep-out  -  of  his  way.      He  cannot 
walk  on  (piiet  paths;  unless  you  will  look  at   him,  wonder 
at  him,  write  paraj^raphs  about  him,  he  cannot  live.      It  is 
the  cmptiiuss  of  the  man,  not  his  <,'reatness.      IJecause  there 
20  is  nothin-,'  in  himself,  he  hummers  and  thirsts  that  you  would 
find  something  in  him.      In  -ood  truth,  I  believe  no  great 
man,  not  .so  much  as  a  genuine  man  who  had  health  and 
real  substance   in    him   of   whatever  magnitude,   was   ever 
much  tormented   in   this  way. 

Your  ( "romwell,  what  good  could  it  do  him  to  l)o  '  noticed  ' 
by  noisy  crowds  of  people  .'  ( lod  his  Maker  ain-ady  noticed 
him.  He,  ("romwell,  was  already  there;  no  notice  would 
make  him  other  than  he  already  was.  lill  his  hair  w.is 
grown  gray;  and  Life  from  the  downhill  .sIoik-  was  all  seen 
30  to  be  limited,  not  infinite  but  finite,  and  all  a  measurable 
matter //^'a' it  went, — he  had  been  content  to  plough  the 
ground,  and  read  his  Mible.  He  in  his  old  days  could  not 
support  It  any  longer,  without  selling  himself  to  I'alsehood, 
1  II'  IP  W  thrown  down  a  IP  IP  IP  keep  out 


I 


IIIH    ilfK'O     XS    KlXii 


2^7 


til  tt  hf  mijilit  ride  in  <;ilt  <\uri.»-fs  ir.  W  hitih.ill,  .iiul  li.ivo 
clerks  with  Inmdles  of  p.nx'rs  huintin;,'  him.  '•  jJecidi-  this, 
decide  that."  which  in  utnm-t  sormw  nf  lu-.irt  no  in.ui  cm 
perfectly  decide!  W  li.it  «uiild  i^ilt  (Mrri.i;;es  do  for  thi-i 
man  '  I'ronj  uf  old,  w.is  there  not  in  his  life  ;i  >•. eij;ht  of 
nie:inin<;,  ;i  terror  i\u\  i  >|.lendour  as  of  ll.Mven  itself? 
His  existence  there  as  inu)  set  hint  heyond  the  need  of 
j^ildin;,'.  heath,  |ud;;tnent  uul  Iternitv:  these  already 
lay  as  the  background  of  wiiatsoever  he  tliou;;lil  or  did. 
All  his  life  l.t  v  begirt  as  in  a  sea  of  nameless  I  hoii;4hts,  lo 
which  no  speecii  ol  i  mortal  coiiUI  name.  Ciod's  ^^  ord,  as 
the  l'urit.in  prophet>of  that  time  navl  read  it:  this  was 
:zrcat,  and  all  else  was  little  t"  him.  In  .ill  ^uch  a  man 
'ambitious,'  to  ti„'ure  I,  m  as  tii  |)riirient  windl.  14  described 
I'love,  set  U1S  to  me  the  |)oorest  s>.k-cism.  .Sik  h  a  man  will 
s  .y  :  "Keep  your  };ilt  carria;^^  and  Im/zaiii:;  mobs,  k'ep 
\*  ur  red-tape  clerks,  your  inlluiiuialities,  voui  imimrtint 
itusinesses.  Leave  me  alone,  leave  me  alone:  there  is  , v 
w//r/i  i>/^ ///•■  in  mi-  already!"  (Mil  Samuel  lohnson,  the 
■greatest  .soul  in  |-.ni,'l,in(l  in  his  d  v,  was  iu<-  and)itious.  20 
'Corsica  Hoswell  '  daunted  at  niblic  shows  ■  wiiii  printed 
ribbons  round  his  hat;  but  tlii  '^rcn  old  S.iunicl  stayed  • 
at  home.  The  wt)rld-witle  soid  wra]  up  '  in  it^  thoughts, 
in  its  sorrows;-  what  could  paradin^~.  aid  rii  tys  in  the 
hat,'  do  for  it  ? 

Ah  yes,  1  will  sa\   aj^ain:    i  he  j^re  •   u/.///  men!      Look- 


in;:  round  on   the  nojsv   in  uiifv  ot   tiie   worl 


woi  ds  wi 


ch 


little  meanin;j;,  actions  with  !ittU-  w    ri; 


me  lovfs  t  reflect 
on  the  jjreat  Kmpire  of  .Vv,  .  The  noble  silent  men, 
scattered  here  and  there,  each  n  lis  d.nattnient  ;  silently  30 
thinkiny:,  silently  working      win 


110 


Morning  Newspaper 


1  n.'t  i/i  H'  II- 
-•  H'  IP  shews 


ir  'i- 


II'   IP  -taiil 

li '  1 1  -  I  r  wrapt  up 


I' 


n 

t  *'i 

1 1 


•I- 


258 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


makes  mention  of!  They  are  the  salt  of  the  Earth.  A 
country  that  has  none  or  few  of  these  is  in  a  bad  way. 
Like  a  forest  which  had  no  roots;  which  had  all  turned 
into  leaves  and  bou};hs ;  -which  must  soon  wither  and  be 
no  forest.  Woe  for  us  if  we  had  nothing  but  what  we  can 
sho7i>,^  or  speak.  Silence,  the  great  Empire  of  Silence: 
higher  than  the  stars;  deeper  than  the  Kingdoms  of 
Death  !  It  alone  is  great ;  all  else  is  small.  —  I  hope  we 
English  will  long  maintain  our  s^nvid  t,i/,:iit  f^oiir  Ic  sih-ncc. 

10  Let  others  that  cannot  do  without  standing  on  barrel- 
heads, to  spout,  and  be  seen  of  all  the  market-place,  culti- 
vate speech  exclusively,  —  become  a  most  green  forest 
without  roots !  Solomon  says,  There  is  a  time  to  speak ; 
but  also  a  time  to  keep  silence.  Of  some  great  silent  Sam- 
uel, not  urged  to  writing,  as  old  Samuel  Johnson  says  he 
was,  by  ik'ant  of  tnoury,  and  nothing  other,  one  might  ask, 
"  Why  do  not  you  too  get  up  and  speak ;  promulgate  your 
system,  found  your  sect?"  "Truly,"  he  will  answer,  "I 
am  iontinait  of  my  thought  hitherto;  happily*  I  -  have  yet 

ZQ  had  the  ability  to  keep  it  in  me,  no  compulsion  strong 
enough  to  speak  it.  My  'system  '  is  not  for  promulgation 
first  of  all ;  it  is  for  serving  myself  to  live  by.  That  is  the 
great  purpose  of  it  to  me.  And  then  the  ' honour '.>  Alas, 
yes;  —but  as  Cato  said  of  the  statue:  So  many  statues  in 
that  Forum  of  yours,  may  it  not  be  better  if  they  ask,  Where 

is  ( "ato's  statue  ?  ' " 

Hut  now,  by  way  of  counterpoise  to  this  of  Silence,  let 
me  say  that  there  are  two  kinds  of  ambition  ;  one  wholly 
blamable,*  the  other  laudable  and  inevitable.  Nature  has 
30  provided  that  the  great  silent  Samuel  shall  not  be  silent 
too  long.  'The  selfish  wish  to  shine  o"er  others,  let  it  be 
accounted  altogether  poor  and  miserable.      'Seekest  thou 


•''  *  \V  H»  I  happily 


Ml'  H=than  say,  There  ills. 
Ml'  Il=blanieable 


71 


THE  HEKO  AS  KING 


259 


great  things,  seek  them  not :  '  this  is  most  true.  ,^d  yet, 
I  say,  there  is  an  irrepressible  tendency  in  every  man  to 
develop^  himself  according  to  the  magnitude  which  Nature 
has  made  him  of;  to  speak-out,-  to  act-out,' what  Nature 
has  laid  in  him.  This  is  proper,  lit,  inevitable  ;  nay,  it  is 
a  duty,  and  even  the  summary  of  duties  for  a  man.  The 
meaning  of  life  here  on  earth  might  be  defined  as  consist- 
ing in  this:  To  unfold  your  self,  to  work  what  thing  you 
have  the  faculty  for.  It  is  a  necessity  for  the  human  being, 
the  first  law  of  our  existence.  Coleridge  beautifully  remarks  lo 
that  the  infant  learns  to  speak  by  this  necessity  it  feels.  — 
We  will  say  therefore :  To  decide  about  ambition,  w  hether 
it  is  bad  or  not,  you  have  two  things  to  take  into  view. 
Not  the  coveting  of  the  place  alone,  but  the  fitness  of  the 
man  for  the  place  withal :  that  is  the  question.  Perhaps 
the  place  was  his;  perhaps  he  had  a  natural  right,  and 
even  obligation,  to  seek  the  place  !  Mirabeau's  ambition  to 
be  Prime  Min  ter,  how  shall  we  blame  it,  if  he  were  'the 
only  man  in  France  that  could  have  done  any  good  there  ? ' 
Hopefuler*  perhaps  had  he  not  so  clearly///  how  much  20 
good  he  could  do !  But  a  poor  Necker,  who  could  do  no 
good,  and  had  even  felt  that  he  could  do  none,  yet  sitting 
broken-hearted  because  they  had  Hung  him  out,  and  he  was 
now  quit  of  it,  well  might  (libhon  mourn  over  him.  Na- 
ture, I  say,  has  provided  amply  that  the  silent  great  man 
shall  strive  to  speak  withal ;  too  amply,  rather  ! 

Fancy,  for  example,  you  had  revealed  to  the  brave  old 
Samuel  Johnson,  in  his  shrouded-up  existence,  that  it  was 
possible  for  him  to  do  priceless  divine  work  for  his  country 
and  the  whole  world.  That  the  perfect  Heavenly  Law  30 
might  be  made  Law  on  this  F.arth  ;  that  the  prayer  he 
prayed  daily,   '  Thy  kingdom  come,'  was  at  length  to  be 


^     'I 
k  ••'i 


»  II«  H=  IPdevelope 
2  II«  IF  H^  speak  out 


■"  H'  IF-  IP  act  out 
MP  ncpcfiillcr 


260 


LECTURES  OAT  I/EROES 


«4 


fulfilled  !  If  you  had  convinced  his  judgment  of  this  ;  that 
it  was  possible,  practicable;  that  he  the  mournful  silent 
Samuel  was  called  to  take  a  part  in  it !  Would  not  the  whole 
soul  of  the  man  have  flamed-up »  into  a  divine  clearness, 
into  noble  utterance  and  determination  to  act ;  casting  all 
sorrows  and  misgivings  under  his  feet,  counting  all  afflic- 
tion and  contradiction  small,  —  the  whole  dark  element  of 
his  existence  blazing  into  articulate  radiance  of  light  and 
lightning  ?     It  were  a  true  ambition  this  !     And  think  now 

10  how  it  actually  was  with  Cromwell.  From  of  old,  the  suf- 
ferings of  God's  Church,  true  zealous  Preachers  of  the 
truth  flung  into  dungeons,  whipt,  set  on  pillories,  their  ears 
cropt-oft,'  (Jod's  Gospel-cause  trodden  under  foot  of  the 
unworthy:  all  this  had  lain  heavy  on  his  soul.  Long 
years  he  had  looked  upon  it,  in  silence,  in  prayer ;  seeing 
no  remedy  on  E;irth ;  trusting  well  that  a  remedy  in 
Heaven's  goodness  would  come,  —  that  such  a  course  was 
false,  unjust,  and  could  not  last  forever.  And  now  behold 
the  dawn  of  it ;  after  twelve  years  silent  waiting,  all  Eng- 

20  land  stirs  itself ;  there  is  to  be  once  more  a  Parliament, 
the  Right  will  get  a  voice  for  itself:    inexpressible  well- 
grounded  hope  has  come  again  into  the  Karth.     Was  not 
such  a  Parliament  worth  being  a  member  of  .>     Cromwe" 
threw  down  his  ploughs,  and  hastened  thither.' 

He  spoke  there,  —  rugged  bursts  of  earnestness,  of  a 
self-seen  truth,  where  we  get  a  glimpse  of  them.  He 
worked  there;  he  fought  and  strove,  like  a  strong  true 

giant  of  a  man,  through  cannon-tumult  and  all  else, on 

and  on,  till    the  Cause  triumphcJ,   its  once  so  formidable 

30  enemies  all  swept  from  before  it,  and  the  dawn  of  hope 

had  become  clear  light  of  victory  and  certainty.     That  he 

stood  there  as  the  strongest  soul  of  England,  the  undisputed 

J  II'  ir  IP  llan.ed  up  ^  H'  ll-'  11^  cropt  off 

^  no  paragraph  in  II'  W  IP 


11 


THK   JIENO  AS  A'/XG 


261 


Hero  of  all  England,  —  what  of  this  ?     It  was  possible  that 
the  Law  of  Christ's  (lospcl  could  now  establish  itself  in 
the  world  !     The  Theocracy  which  John  Knox  in  his  pulpit 
might  dream  of  as  a  'devout  imagination,"  this  practical 
man,  experienced  in  the  whole  chaos  of  most  rough   prac- 
tice, dared  to  consider  as  capable  of  being  im/is.:/.      Those 
that  were  highest  in  Christ's  Church,  the  devoutest  wisest 
men,  were  to  rule  the  land  :   in  some  considerable  degree, 
it  might  be  so  and  should  be  so.     Was  it  not  ////,-,  (lod's 
truth  ?     And  if  inic,  was  it  not  then  the  very  thing  to  do?  lo 
The    strongest    practical    intellect    in    Kngland    dared    to 
answer,  Ves !     This  I  call  a  noble  true  purjiose ;  is  it  not, 
in   its   own  dialect,  the  noblest  tiiat   could  enter  into  the 
heart  of  Statesman  or  man  ?      For  a  Knox  lo  take  it  uj)  was 
something;  but  for  a  Cromwell,  with  his  great  sound  sense 
and  experience  of  what  our  world  i.uts,  —  History,  I  think, 
shows  1  it  only  this  once   in  such   a  degree.      I   account  it 
the  culminating  jjoint  of  Protestantism  ;  the  most  heroic 
phasis  that  'Faith  in  the  I'.ible  '  was  appointed  to  exhibit 
here  below.     Fancy  it:  that  it  were  made  manifest  to  one  20 
of  us,  how  we  could  make  the    Right   supremely  victorious 
over  Wrong,  and  all  that  we  had  longed  and  jirayed  for,  as 
the  highest  good  to   Kngland  and  all  lands,  an  attainable 
fact! 

Well,  I  must  say,  the  rii/piiir  intellect,  with  ils  knowing- 
ness,  its  alertness  and  expertness  in  'detecting  hypocrites,' 
seems  to  me  a  rather  sorry  business.  We  have  had  but 
one  such  Statesman  in  Kngland  ;  one  man,  that  I  can  get 
sight  of,  who  ever  had  in  the  heart  of  him  any  such  pur- 
pose at  all.  One  man,  in  the  course  of  rifteen-hundred  -  30 
years;  and  this  was  his  welcome.  He  had  adherents  by 
the  hundred  or  the  ten ;  opi)oneats  by  the  million.  Had 
Kngland  rallied  all  round  hi»i,  —  why,  then,  Kngland  might 
» II'  IV  IP  shews  2  W  11"  IV  fifteen  hundred 


1 « .■ 


\     r. 


R 


262 


LECTURES  OX  HEROES 


li; 


If 
1 4: 


P 


I: 

i 
I- 


have  been  a  Christian  land  1  As  it  is,  vulpine  knowingness 
sits  yet  at  its  hopeless  problem,  'Given  a  world  of  Knaves, 
to  educe  an  Honesty  from  their  united  action';  -how 
cumbrous  a  problem,  you  may  see  in  Chancery  Law-Courts, 
and  some  other  places  !  V'xW  at  length,  by  Heaven's  just 
anger,  but  also  by  Heaven's  great  grace,  the  matter  begins 
to  stagnate ;  and  this  problem  is  becoming  to  all  men  a 
palpably  hopeless  one.  — 

But  with  regard  to  Cromwell  and  his  purposes  :  Hume, 
lo  and  a  multitude  following  him,  come  upon  me  here  with 
an  admission  that  Crumwell  7i<as  sincere  at  first ;  a  sincere 
«  Fanatic  '  at  first,  but  gradually  became  a  '  Hypocrite  '  as 
things  opened  round  him.  'I'his  of  the  Fanatic-Hypocrite 
is  Hume's  theory  of  it;  extensively  applied  since,  —  to 
Mahomet  and  many  others.  Think  of  it  seriously,  you 
will  find  something  in  it;  not  much,  not  all,  very  far  from 
all.  Sincere  hero  hearts^  do  not  sink  in  this  miserable 
manner.  The  .Sun  flings-forth  ^  impurities,  gets  balefully 
incrusted  with  spots;  but  it  does  not  quench  itself,  and 
20  become  no  Sun  at  all,  but  a  mass  of  Darkness!  I  will 
venture  to  say  that  such  never  befell  a  great  deep  Crom- 
well ;  I  think,  never.  Nature's  own  lion-hearted  Son ; 
Antanis-like,  his  strength  is  got  by  toitfliiufi  the  Earthy  his 
Mother;  lift  him  up  from  the  Earth,  lift  him  up  into 
Hypocrisy,  Inanity,  his  strength  is  gone.  We  will  net 
assert  that  Cromwell  was  an  immaculate  man  ;  that  he 
fell  into  no  faults,  no  insincerities  among  the  rest.  He 
was  no  dilettante  professor  of  'perfections,'  'immaculate 
conducts.'  He  was  a  rugged  Orson,  rending  his  rough 
30  way  through  actual  true  work,  —  doubtless  with  many  a 
fall  therein.  Insincerities,  faults,  very  many  faults  daily 
and  hourly :  it  was  too  well  known  to  him  ;  known  to  God 
1  H'  11=  W  hero-hearts  «  H'  H»  H^  flings  forth 


1 


TIfK   IlEKO  AS  KING 


263 


and  him  !  The  Sun  wis  dimmed  many  \  time ;  but  the 
Sun  had  not  himself  j^rown  a  Dimness.  Cromwell's  last 
words,  as  he  lay  waitinjj  for  dj  ih,  are  those  of  a  Christian 
heroic  man.  Broken  prayers  to  (lod,  that  He  would  jadj;e 
him  and  *  this  Cause,'  He  since  man  could  not,  in  justice 
yet  in  pity.  They  are  most  touching  words.  He  breathed- 
out''  his  wild  great  soul,  its  toils  and  sins  all  ended  now, 
into  the  presence  of  his  Maker,  in  this  manner. 

I,  for  one,  will  not  call  the  man  a  Hypocrite  !  Hyiiocrite, 
mummer,  the  life  of  him  a  mere  theatricality;  empty  barren  lo 
quack,  hungry  for  the  shouts  of  mobs  ?  The  man  had  made 
obscurity  do  very  well  for  him  till  his  head  was  gray""; 
and  now  he  liHts,  there  as  he  .stood  recognised  unblamed, 
the  virtual  King  of  England.  Cannot  a  man  do  without 
King's  Coaches  and  Cloaks.'  Is  it  such  a  blessedness  to 
have  clerks  forever  pestering  you  with  bundles  of  pajjcrs 
in  red  tape  ?  A  simple  Diocletian  prefers  planting  of  cab- 
bages ;  a  George  Washington,  no  very  immeasurable  man, 
does  the  like.  One  would  say,  it  is  what  any  genuine  man 
could  do  ;  and  would  do.  The  instant  his  real  work  were  20 
out  in  the  matter  of  Kingship,     -  away  with  it  ! 

Let  us  remark,  meanwhile,  how  indispensable  every- 
where a  A'/V/i,--  i.s,  in  all  movements  of  men.  It  is  strikingly 
shown,*  in  this  very  War,  what  becomes  of  men  when  they 
cannot  find  a  Chief  Man,  and  their  enemies  can.  The 
Scotch  Nation  was  all  but  unanimous  in  Puritan:  1; 
zealous  and  of  one  mind  al)out  it,  as  in  this  Knglish  c.id 
of  the  Island  was  always  far  from  being  the  ca.-.j.  Hut 
there  was  no  great  Cromwell  among  them  ;  poor  tremulous, 
hesitating,  diplomatic  Argyles  and  suchlike  ';  none  of  them  30 
had  a  heart  true  enough  for  the  truth,  or  durst  commit 


H    'I 


'11 


1  1  not  ill  H"  II- 

••*  H'  HMP  breathed 


out 


'  H'  11^  H'grL-y 
"  II'  H»  H^shewr 


5  H'  H"  H^  such  like 


-I 


4- 

'J 

1 

! 


t\ 


I! 


i 


2M 


LECTURES  ON  IIEKOES 


himself  to  the  truth.  They  had  no  leader;  and  the 
scattered  Cavalier  party  in  that  country  had  one:  Mont- 
rose, the  noblest  of  all  the  Cavaliers;  an  accomplished, 
tjallant-hearted,  splendid  man  ;  what  one  may  call  the 
Hero-Cavalier.  Well,  look  at  it;  on  the  one  hand  sub- 
jects without  a  King;  on  the  other  a  King  without  sub- 
jects! The  subjects  without  King  can  do  nothing;  the 
subjectless  King  can  do  something.  This  Monirose,  with 
a  handful  of  Irish  or  Highland  savages,  few  of  them  so 

10  much  as  guns  in  their  hands,'  dashes  at  the  drilled  Puritan 
armies  like  a  wild  whirlwind  ;  sweeps  them,  time  after  time, 
some  five  times  over,  from  the  field  before  him.  He  was  at 
one  period,  for  a  short  while,  master  of  all  Scotland.  One 
man  ;  but  he  was  a  man  :  a  million  zealous  men,  but  loil/ioiit 
the  one  ;  they  against  him  were  powerless  !  Perhaps  of  all 
the  persons  in  that  Puritan  struggle,  from  first  to  last,  the 
single  indispensable  one  was  verily  Cromwell.  To  see  and 
dare,  and  decide ;  to  be  a  fixed  pillar  in  the  welter  of  un- 
certainty ;  —  a  King  among  them,  whether  they  called  him 

2o  so  or  not. 


Precisely  here,  however,  lies  the  rub  for  Cromwell.  His 
other  proceedings  have  all  found  advocates,  and  stand 
generally  justified ;  but  this  dismissal  of  the  Rump  Parlia- 
ment and  assumption  of  the  Protectorship,  is  what  no  one 
can  pardon  him.  He  had  fairly  grown  to  be  King  in  Eng- 
land ;  Chief  Man  of  the  victorious  party  in  England :  but 
it  seems  he  could  not  do  without  the  King's  Cloak,  and 
sold  himself  to  perdition  in  order  to  get  it.  Let  us  see  a 
little  how  this  was. 

England,  Scotland,  Ireland,  all  lying  now  subdued  at  the 
feet  of  the  Puritan  Parliament,  the  practical  question  arose, 
What  was  to  be  done  with  it  .>     How  will  you  govern  these 

»  H»  IP  hand, 


30 


II' 


THE   IIKKO  AS  KIXC 


265 


Nations,  which    I'rovidfncc  in  a  wondrous  way  has  siven- 
up»  to  your  disposal?      Clearly  those  hundred  surrivin- 
members  of  the  Long  Parliament,  who  sit  there  as  supreme 
authority,  cannot  continue  forever  to  sit.     What  is  to  be 
done?— It  was  a  question  which  theoretical  constitution- 
builders  may  find  easy  to  answer ;  but  to  (  romwell,  look- 
ing there  into  the  real  practical  facts  of  it,   there   could 
be  none  more  complicated.      He  asked  of  the  Parliament, 
What    it  was    they  would  decide  upon.'     It  was  for  the 
Parliament  to  say.      Vet  the  Soldiers  too,  however  contrary  lo 
to  Formula,  they  who  had  purchased  this  victory  with  their 
l)lood,  it  seemed  to  them  that  they  also  should  have  some- 
thing to  say  in  it !    We  will  not  "  I-or  ^'  all  our  fightin-  have 
nothing  but  a  little  piece  of  paper."     We  understand  that 
the   Law  of   (lod's   (lospel,   to  which    He  through   us  has 
given  the  victory,  shall  establish  itself,  or  trv  to  establish 
itself,  in  this  land  ! 

For  three  years,  Cromwell  says,  this  question  had  been 
sounded  in  the  ears  of  the  Parliament.      They  could  make 
no  answer;  nothing  but  talk,  talk.      Perhaps  it  lies  in  the  -^o 
nature  of   parliamentary  bodies;    perhaps  no    Parliament 
could   in   such   case   make  any  answer   but  even    that   of 
talk,  talk!     Nevertheless  the  question  must  and  shall  be 
answered.     You  sixty  men   there,  becoming    f.ist    odious, 
fven   despicable,  to   the   whole   nation,  whom   tlie   nation 
already  calls »  Rump  Parliament,  yo„  cannot  continue  to 
sit  there:  who  or  what  then  is  to  follow?     'Free   Parlia- 
ment,' right  of  Election,  Constitutional   Formulas  of  one 
sort  or  the  other,  —  the  thing  is  a  hungry  lact  coming  on 
us,  which  we  must  answer  or  be  devoured  by  it !     And  who  30 
are  you  that  prate  of  Constitutional   Formulas,   rights  of 
Parliament?     You  have  had  to  kill   your   King,  to  make 

J  ir  IP  H'  given  up  2  H'  FI=  IP  for 

'II'  IP  IP  call 


t 


266 


LF.C TURKS  OJSr  I/EKOES 


H 

j  1. 

i 


it 


m 

li  't 


i! 


Pride's  Purges,  to  expel  and  banish  by  the  law  of  the 
stronger  whosoever  would  not  let  your  Cause  prosiier : 
there  are  but  fifty  or  three-score  of  you  left  there,  debating 
in  these  days.  Tell  us  what  we  shall  do ;  not  in  the  way 
of  Formula,  but  of  practicable  Fact  I 

How  they  did  finally  answer,  remains  obscure  to  this 
day.  The  diligent  (Jodwin  himself  admits  that  he  cannot 
make  it  out.  The  likeliest  is,  that  this  poor  Parliament 
still  would  not,  and  indeed  could  not  dissolve  and  disperse  ; 

10  that  when  it  came  to  the  point  of  actually  dispersing,  they 
again,  for  the  tenth  or  twentieth  time,  adjourned  it,  —  and 
Cromwell's  patience  failed  him.  Hut  we  will  take  the 
favourablest  hypothesis  ever  started  for  the  Parliament ; 
the  favourablest,  though  I  believe  it  is  not  the  true  one, 
but  too  favourable.' 

According  to  this  version  :  At  the  uttermost  crisis,  when 
Cromwell  and  his  Officers  were  met  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  fifty  or  sixty  Rump  Members  on  the  other,  it  was 
suddenly  told  Cromwell  that  the  Rump  in  its  despair  was 

20  answering  in  a  very  singular  way ;  that  in  their  splenetic 
envious  despair,  to  keep-out ''  the  Army  at  least,  these  men 
were  hurrying  through  the  House  a  kind  of  Reform  Bill,  — 
Parliament  to  be  chosen  by  the  whole  of  England ;  equable 
electoral  division  into  districts ;  free  suffrage,  and  the  rest 
of  it !  A  very  questionable,  or  indeed  for  them  an  unques- 
tionable thing.  Reform  Hill,  free  suffrage  of  Englishmen  ? 
Why,  the  Royalists  themselves,  silenced  indeed  but  not 
exterminated,  perhaps  onViumber  us;  the  great  numerical 
majority  of   England  was  always  indifferent  to  our  Cause, 

30  merely  looked  at  it  and  submitted  to  it.      't  is  in  weight 

and   force,    not    by   counting   of    heads,    t,   ..  we   are  the 

n«..jority !      And    now    with    your    Formulas    and    Reform 

Bills,  the  whole  matter,  sorely  won  by  our  swords,  shall 

1  no  paragraph  in  IP  H»  H'  «  H'  H»  H'  keep  out 


n 


////■:   HE  NO   AS  KIXU 


l«l 


% 

1 

I 


again  launch  itself  to  sea ;  become  a  mere  hope,  and  like- 
lihood, jw.///even  as  a  likelihood?  And  it  is  not  a  likeli- 
hood; it  is  a  certainty,  which  we  have  won,  by  (lod's 
strength  and  our  own  right  hands,  and  do  now  hold  hen: 
Cromwell  walked  down  to  these  refractory  Members  ;  inter- 
rupted them  in  that  rapid  speed  of  their  Reform  Hill ;  — 
ordered  them  to  begone,  and  talk  there  no  more.  —Can 
we  not  forgive  him  ?  (^an  we  not  understand  him  ?  John 
Milton,  who  looked  on  it  all  near  at  hand,  could  applaud 
him.  The  Reality  had  swept  the  Formulas  away  before  it.  lo 
I  fancy,  most  men  who  were  realities '  in  Kngland  might 
see  into  the  necessity  of  that. 

The  strong  daring  man,  therefore,  has  set  all  manner  of 
Formulas  and  logical  superficialities  against  him  ;  has  dared 
appeal  to  the  genuine  Fact  of  this  Kngland,  Whether  it 
will  support  him  or  not?  It  is  curious  to  see  how  he 
struggles  to  govern  in  some  constitutional  way;  find  some 
Parliament  to  support  him  ;  but  cannot.  His  first  Parlia- 
ment, the  one  they  call  Harebones's  Parliament,  is,  so  to 
speak,  a  Convocation  of  tfie  XouibliS.  From  all  quarters  of  20 
England  the  leading  Ministers  and  chief  Puritan  Officials 
nominate  the  men  most  distinguished  by  religious  reputa- 
tion, influence  and  attachment  to  the  true  Cause:  these 
are  assembled  to  shai)c-out  -  a  plan.  They  sanctioned 
what  was  past ;  shaped  as  they  could  what  was  to  come, 
riiey  were    scornfully  called  Barehoiu-ss  Parlhincnt :   the 

man's  name,  it  seems,  was  not  Bareboms,  but  l5arbone, 

a  good  enough  man.  Nor  was  it  a  jest,  their  work;  it 
was  a  most  serious  reality,  -  a  trial  on  the  part  of  these 
J'uritan  Notables  how  far  the  Law  of  Christ  could  become  30 
the  Law  of  this  Kngland.  There  were  men  of  sense  among 
them,  men  of  some  quality ;  men  of  deep  piety  I  suppose 
the  roost  of  them  were.     They  failed,  it  seems,  and  broke- 


n 


\ 


*  H'  II'  IP  Realities 


II'  H-^  11' shape  out 


268 


LECTUKKS  OAT  I/KA'OJiS 


-  W 

*i 

"  m 

0 

■J  '  ' 
%  * 


It 


11 


down,'  endeavouring  to  reform  the  Court  of  Chancery! 
They*  dissolved  themselves,  as  incompetent;  deliveredup 
their  power  again  into  the  hands  of  the  Lord  (General 
Cromwell,  to  do  with  it  what  he  liked  and  could.* 

What '  7iv7/  he  do  with  it  ?  I'he  Lord  (leneral  Cromwell, 
•Commander-in-chief  of  all  the  Forces  raised  and  to  be 
raised;'  he  hereby  sees  himself,  at  this  unexampled  junc- 
ture, as  it  were  the  one  available  Authority  left  in  Kngland. 
nothing  between  Kngland  and  utter  Anarchy  but  him  alone. 

10  Such  is  the  undeniable  Fact  of  his  position  and  Kngland's, 
there  and  then.  What  will  he  do  with  it  ?  After  delibera- 
tion, he  decides  that  he  will  acct//  it ;  will  formally,  with 
public  solemnity,  say  and  vow  before  (lod  and  men,  "Yes, 
the  Fact  is  so,  and  I  will  do  the  best  I  can  with  it !  "  Pro- 
tectorship, Instrument  of  (lovernment,  —  these  are  the 
external  forms  of  the  thinjr;  worked  out  and  sanctioned 
as  they  could  in  the  circumstances  be,  by  the  Judges,  by 
the  leading  Official  people,  •  Council  of  Officers  and  Persons 
of  interest  in  the  Nation :  '  and  as  for  the  thing  itself,  un- 

2o  deniably  enough,  at  the  pass  matters  had  now  come  to,  there 
was  no  alternative  but  Anarchy  or  that.  Puritan  Kngland 
might  accept  it  or  not ;  but  Puritan  Kngland  was,  in  real 
truth,  saved  from  suicide  thereby  ! — I  believe  the  Puritan 
People  did,  in  an  inarticulate,  grumbling,  yet  on  the  whole 
grateful  and  real  way,  accept  this  anomalous  act  of  Oliver's; 
at  least,  he  and  they  together  made  it  good,  and  always 
better  to  the  last.  But  in  their  Parliamentary  articulate 
way,  they  had  their  difficulties,  and  never  knew  fully  what 
to  say  to  it ' !  — 

30      Oliver's*  second  Parliament,  properly^  his  yir>j/  regular 

»  H'  H»  IP  broke  down 

22  iji  ijs  XJiL-y  appuintcd  Cromwell  Protector,  and  went  their  ways. 

'*  This  entire  paragraph  appear:  first  in  IP 

♦H' IP  The  ^^  not  in  WW 


TtlK  llKh'O  AS   KIXG 


W) 


I'arli.imtnt,'  chosen  by  the  rule  liid-down  '  in  the  Instru- 
ment of   (iovcrninnit,'  did    assemble,  and  worked;-     but 
got,  before  long,  into  bottomless  questions  is  to  the  Pro. 
tector's  ni;/it,  as  lo  'usurpation,'  and  so  forth;  and  had 
at  the  earliest  legal  day  to  be  dismissed.     Cromwell's  con- 
cluding SiK-ech   to  tiuse  men   is  a  remarkable  one.     So- 
likewise  to  his  third  rarliainent,  in  similar  n-bukc  for  their 
pedantries  and  obstinacies.''     Most  rude,  chaotic,  all  these 
SjK'eches  are  ;  but  most  earnest-looking.      \ou  would  say, 
it  was  a  si.ncerf  helpless  man  ;  not  used  to  s/<,;tk  the  great  ic 
inorganic  thought  of  him,  but  to  act  it  rather  I     .\  helpless- 
ness of  utter, uicc,  in  such  bursting  fulness  of  meaning.      He 
talks  much  about  'births of  Providence  : '  All  these  changes, 
so  many  victories  and  events,  were  nr)t  forethoughts,  and 
theatrical  contrivances  of  men,  of  w,  or  of  men  ;  it  is  blind 
blasphemers  that  will  persist  in  calling  them  so!     He  in- 
sists with  a  heavy  sulphurous  wrathful  emphasis  on  this. 
As  he  well  might.     As  if  a  Cromwell  in  that  dark  huge 
game  he  had  been  playing,  the  w(jrld  wholly  thrown   into 
chaos  round  him,  had  foirurn  it  all,  and  played  it  all  off  20 
like  a  jjrecontrivcd  puppetshow  '  by  wood  and  wire  !  These 
things  were  foreseen  by  no  man,  he  says ;  no  man  could 
tell  what  a  day  would  bring  forth:   they  were  'births  of 
Providence,'  (lod's  finger  guided  us  on,  and  we  came  at 
last  to  clear  height  of  victory,  C.od's  Cause  triumphant  in 
these  Nations  ;   and  you  as  a   Parliament  could  assemble 
together,  and  say  in  what  manner  all  this  could  be  (>r^',inhe<f, 
reduced  into  rational  feasibility  among  the  affairs  of  men. 
Vou  were  to  help  with  your  wise  counsel  in  doing  that. 
"  Vou  have  had  sucii  an  opportunity  as  no  Parliament  in  30 
England  ever  had."     Christ's  Law,  the  Right  and  True, 
w.as  to  be  in  some  measure  made  the  T.aw  of  this  land.     In 


ft 


"  H'  W  these   N'otal)lts   h.ul   fixed   upon:    H'  as  //.•/•••.  fxcept  laid 
elown  2  -•  not  in  WW-  ^n-\V  puppetshcw 


1 


4r 


270 


LF.CTL'h'hS  OX  m-.KOES 


place  of  that,  you  hiivu  ){ot  into  your  idle  |H.*(t.uitric.s  con- 
stitutionalitius,  l>oltonileNs  cavillings  und  ((ucstionin^^  about 
written  laws  for  my  coming  hcru ;  and  would  send  the 
whole  matter  in  (  haos  a};ain,  iHrcausc  I  have  no  \olary'>» 
parchment,  but  only  (iod's  voice  from  the  battle-whirlwind, 
for  bein};  President  amon^  you  !  That  opiMirtuuity  is  ^onc  , 
and  wc  know  not  when  it  will  return.  Vou  have  had  your 
constitutional  Lo^ic ;  and  Mammon's  Law,  not  Christ's 
Law,  rules  yet  in  this  land,     "(lod  be  judge  between  ymi 

10  and  me !  "  These  are  his  final  words  to  them  :  Take  yoii 
your  constitution-formulas  in  your  hand  ;  and  I  my  ///formal 
struggles,  purposes,  realities  and  acts;  and  "(Jwl  Ix;  judge 
between  you  and  me  !  "  — 

We  said  above  what  shapeless,  involved  chaotic  things 
the  printed  Sjieeches  of  (  romwell  '  are.  Wilfully  ambigu 
ous,  unintelligible,  say  the  most :  a  hypocrite  shroudin;; 
himself  in  confused  Jesuitic  jargon  !  To  me  they  do  not 
seem  so.  I  will  say  rather,  they  afforded  the  first  glimpses 
I  could  ever  get  into  the  reality  of  this  Cromwell,  nay  into 

20  the  possibility  of  him.  Try  to  believe  that  he  means  some- 
thing, search  lovingly  what  that  may  be:  you  will  find  a 
real  speech  lying  imprisoned  in  these  broken  rude  tortuous 
utterances;  a  meaning  in  the  great  heart  of  this  inarticu- 
late man  !  Vou  will,  for  the  first  time,  begin  to  see  that  hi- 
was  a  man;  not  an  enigmatic  chimera,  unintelligible  t(t 
you,  incredible  to  you.  I'he  Histories  and  Hiographies 
written  of  this  Cromwell,  written  in  shallow  sceptical  gen- 
erations that  could  not  know  or  conceive  of  a  deep  believ- 
ing man,  are  far  more  obsiitn-  than   Cromwell's  Speeches. 

30  You  look  through  them  only  into  the  infinite  vague  of 
Black  and  the  Inane.  'Heats  and  jealousies,'  says  Lord 
Clarendon  himself:  'heats  and  jealousies,'  mere  crabbed 
whims,  theories  and  crotchets ;  these  induced  slow  sober 

1  ir  IP  Cromwell's 


I  ii 


rill.  iti:f.'o  AS  KixG 


271 


quiet  Kn^liHhincn  lo  lay  dcjvvn  im  ir  |)lt)ii;»hH  uiul  work; 
and  (ly  into  red  fury  of  confu.scd  \\\x  against  the  best-con- 
ditioned of  Kinj^s!  I'ly  if  yon  t.in  find  th.it  true.  Stepti- 
cisnj  writing;  ahoiit  Ik-lief  iniy  have  ;;rLMt  ^ift^  ;  Imt  it  i!% 
really  /////<»  -ins  there.  It  is  llliiuiness  layin^-down  '  the 
Laws  of  Optics. 

CromweH's  third  Parliament  split  on  the  >,anie  rock  as 
hi.H  second.  Kver  the  con^tiiutional  I ornnil.i  llow(anK' 
you  there.'  Show-  us  M)ine  Notary  parcliinciil  !  Ulind 
pedants:  —  "Why,  sup.In  the  same  power  which  makes  lo 
you  a  Parliament,  tint,  uid  somethin;^  more,  made  me  a 
i'roteclor  !  "  If  my  Protcclorship  is  notliiii;^,  wh.it  in  the 
name  of  wonder  is  your  l'arliamenie<''"'>hip,  i  rellex  and 
creation  of  thai .    - 

Parliaments  havin^r  fiil  •'',  th<  re  remained  nolhinj;  but 
the  way  of  Despotism.  .\Iilj;Hy  I  M.tators,  each  with  iiis 
district,  to  cot-rce  th»r  Ko\,ilisi  and  oih..  r  ^ainsayers,  to 
govern  them,  if  not  by  ait  of  I'.irliament,  then  by  the 
sword.  Fonnula  sh  ill  not  carry  it,  while  the  Reality  is 
here!  I  will  go  on,  jiroteclinf^  ojjpressed  I'rotesi.i'its  :o 
abroad,  appointinj;  just  judj^es,  wise  manaj^ers,  at  lior.)'-. 
cherishinjj  true  (iospel  ministers;  doiui^  the  best  I  car.  i,. 
make  Kngland  a  Christian  Kn;j;lan(l,  gre.iter  than  (;ld  ki-v  ^ 
the  (^ueen  of  i'rotestant  Christianity;  I,  since  you  wi!!  w  >' 
help  me;  I  while  Cod  leaves  nic  lite  I  Why  did  he  noi 
j;ive  it  up;  retire  into  obscurity  ajriin.  >ince  the  Law  would 
not  acknowledf^e  him  ?  cry  several.  Ill  it  is  where  they 
mistake.  For  him  ther*.-  was  no  ;^ivin<;  of  it  up!  i'rime 
Ministers  have  governed  countries,  Pitt.  Pombal,  Choiseul ; 
and  their  word  was  a  law  while  it  held  :  but  this  Prime  30 
Minister  was  one  that  louhl iu>l  ^,t  ii-^ii^iicil.  Let  him  once 
resign,  Charles  .Stuart  and  the  Cavaliers  waited  to  kill  him; 
to  kill  the  Cause  and  him.     Unce  embarked,  there  is  no 


.    '1 


r 


^    r 


'  H'  II'  111  laying  down 


^  II'  II-"  IP  Shew 


I   I 


:  i 

Hi 


1 


272 


LECTUKES  ON  HEROES 


retreat,  no  return.      This  Prime  Minister  could  retire  no 
whither  except  into  his  tomb. 

One  is  sorry  for  Cromwell  in  his  old  days.     His  com- 
plaint is  incessant  of  the  heavy  burden  Providence  has  laid 
on  him.     Heavy  ;  which  he  must  bear  till  death.    Old  Colo- 
nel Hutchinson,'  as  his  wife  relates  it,  Hutchinson,*  his  old 
battle-mate,  coming  to  see  him  on  some  indispensable  busi- 
ness, much  against  his  will,  —  Cromwell  'follows  him  to 
the  door,'  in  a  most  fraternal,  domestic,  conciliatory  style; 
10  begs  that  he  would  be  reconciled  to  him,  his  old  brother 
in  arms  ;  says  how  much  it  grieves  him  to  be  misunderstood, 
deserted  by  true  fellow-soldiers,"  dear  to  him  from  of  old  : 
the  rigorous  Hutchinson,*  cased  in  his  Republican  '  formula, 
sullenly  goes  hisway.  —  And  the  man's  head  now  white; 
his  strong  arm  growing  weary  with  its  long  work  !     I  think 
always  too  of  his  poor  Mother,  now  very  old,  living  in  that 
Palace  of  his;  a  right  brave  woman;  as  indeed  they  lived 
all  an  honest  Cod-fearing  Household  there:  if  she  heard  a 
shot  go-olT,"  she  thought  it  was  her  son  killed.     He  had  to 
20  come  to  her  at '  least  once'  a  day,  that  she  might  see  with 
her  own  eyes  that  he  was  yet  living.     The  poor  old  Mother  ! 

What  had  this  man  gained  ;  what  had  he  gained  .'    Fie 

had  a  life  of  sore  strife  and  toil,  to  his  last  day.  Fame, 
ambition,  place  in  History?  His  dead  body  was  hung  in 
chains  ;  his  'place  in  History,'  —place  in  History  forsooth  ! 
—  has  been  a  place  of  ignominy,  accusation,  blackness  and 
disgrace;  and  here,  this  day,  who  knows  if  it  is  not  rash 
in  me  to  be  among  the  first  that  ever  ventured  to  pronounce 
him  not  a  knave  and  liar,  but  a  genuinely  honest  man! 
30  Peace  to  him.      Did  he  not,  in  spite  of  all,  accomplish  much 


ii 


'  "'  "'  Ilutrhesoii  4  n.  ||2  Hii^-heson 

"  "'  "'  llutclics..n  &  H'  IP  Presbyterian 

"  H'  IP  IPfcllcjw  SDlditr^,  '''  II'  II-  IPyo  off, 

'  "  11'  11-  twice 


THE   IIKKO   AS   A/XG 


273 


for  us  ?  in-  walk  smoothly  over  his  j,'rcat  rouj;h  heroic  life  ; 
step-over'  his  body  sunk  in  the  ditch  tlu-re.  We  need  not 
.>////-«  it,  as  we  stej)  on  it  !  -  Let  the  Hero  rest.  It  was  not 
to  f/ufi's  judgment  that  he  appealed  ;  nor  have  men  judged 
him  very  well. 


Precisely  a  century  and  a  year  after  this  of   Puritanism 
had  got  itself  hushed-up-  into  decent  composure,  and  its 
results  made  smooth,  in  ir)SS,  there  hrokeout    a  far  deeper 
explosion,  much   more  ditficult  to  hushup,^  known   to  all 
mortals,  and  like  to  he  long  known,  by  the  name  of  i'rench   lo 
Revolution.      It  is  properly  the  third  and  final  act  of  Prot- 
estantism ;    the  explosive  c(jnfiised   return   of  mankind    to 
Reality  and    Pact,  now  that   they   were   iierishing  of  Sem- 
blance  and   .Sham.      We  call   our    l.n-lish    Puritanism    the 
second  act:    "Well   then,' the    i;il)!e   is   true;    let   us  go  by 
the  liible  !  "     "  In  (  hurch,"  said  Luther  ;   "  In  (  hurch  and 
State,"  said  Cromweil,  "k-t  us  go  by  what  actually  /,  (iod's 
Truth."      Men  have  to  return   to  reality:   they  cannot  live 
on  semblance.      The   I'rench    Kev(jlutioii,  or  third  act,  we 
may  well  call  the  linal  one  ;  for  lower  than  that  savage  S,n/.s-  jo 
adoltism  men  cannot  go.      They  stand  there  on  the  nakedest 
haggard  Pact,  undeniable  in  all  seasons  and  circumstances; 
and  may  and  must  begin  ;igain  confidently  to  build-up''  from 
that.       The  Prench  explosion,  like  the  P.nglish  one.  got   its 
King,     -who  had  no  Notary  i)archmi-nt  to  show  ■  for  him- 
self.    W'e  have  still   to  glance  for  a  moment  at  Napoleon, 
our  second  modern  King. 

Napolef»n  tloes  by  no  means  si-cm   to   me  so  great  a  man 
as  fromwell.      His  enormous  victories  which  reached  over 


S     'i 


'   II'    II-   ll'lni.h  ii|., 
•  II'  11-^  llim 


'   IP   II-  H'str|>.,vel 
"-  IP  11-  IP  Imshca  up 
^IP  11=  IPl;r..ki-...:!  •    If  \V  ll'l.mid  uj 

■  IP  H-  II'>law 


r 


i5- 


li  II 


•  1. 

II 


274 


I.ECTUKF.S   ON  Hl.KOES 


all  Europe,  while  Cromwell  abode  mainly  in  our  little  Enj;- 
land,  are  but  as  the  high  slilts  on  which  the  man  is  seen  stand 
ing ;'  the  stature  of  the  man  is  not  altered  thereby.      1  find 
in  him  no  such  simcily  as  in  Cromwell  ;  only  a  far  inferior 
sort.     No   silent   walking,   through   long   years,  with  the 
Awful '  Unnamable  '  of  this  Universe  ;  '  walking  with  God,' 
as  he  called  it ;  and  faith  and  strength  in  that  alone  :  lalcnt 
thought  and  valour,  content  to  lie  latent,  then  burst  out  as 
in  blaze  of  Heaven's  lightning !     Napoleon  lived  in  an  a^je 
,o  when  God  was  no  longer   believed ;    the   meaning  of  all 
Silence,  Latency,  was  thought  to  be  Nonentity :  he  had  to 
bogin  not  out  of  the  Puritan  Bible,  but  out  of  poor  Scepti- 
cal Encvchpedies.      This  was  the  length  the  man  carried  it. 
Meritorious  to  get  so  far.     His  compact,  prompt,  everyway  - 
articulate  character  is  in  itself  perhaps  small,  compared  with 
our  great  chaotic  ///articulate  Cromwell's.     Instead  of  'dumb 
Prophet  struggling  to  speak,'  we  have  a  portentous  mixture 
of  the  Quack  withal !      Hume's  notion  of  the  Fanatic-Hypo- 
crite, with  such  truth  as  it  has,  will   apply  much  better  to 
2o  Napoleon  than  it  did  to  Cromwell,  to  Mahomet  or  the  like, 
—  where  indeed  taken  strictly  it  has  hardly  any  truth  at 
all.     An  element  of  blamable  »  ambition  shows  *  itself,  from 
the  first,  in  this  man ;  gets  the  victory  over  him  at  last,  and 
involves  him  and  his  work  in  ruin. 

'  False  as  a  bulletin  '  became  a  proverb  in  Napoleon's 
time.  He  makes  what  excuse  he  could  for  it :  that  it  was 
necessary  to  mislead  the  enemy,  to  keep-up^  his  own  men's 
courage,  and  so  forth.  On  the  whole,  there «  are  no  excuses. 
A  man  in  no  case  has  liberty  to  tell  lies.  It  had  been,  in 
30  the  long-run,  better  for  Napoleon  too  if  he  had  not  told  any. 

1  1  IP  IP  Awful,  rnnanieal.le   II'  Awful.  Unnamable 
■i  |i'  IP  IPevtry-way  *  H'  H'  H' shews 

«  ll«  IP  blameabk  MP  IP  11^  keep  up        V 

6  11"  IP  these 


TlfE    I fF.no   AS   KING 


27S 


In  fact,  if  a  man  have  any  purpose  reachinj;  beyond  the 
hour  and  day,  meant  to  be  found  extant  luwl  day,  what 
good  can  it  ever  be  to  iiromulgate  lies  ?  I'he  lies  are  found- 
out ' ;  ruinous  penalty  is  exacted  for  them.  No  man  will 
believe  the  liar  next  time  even  when  he  speaks  truth,  when 
it  is  of  the  last  importance  that  he  be  believed.  The  old 
cry  of  wolf !  *- A  Lie  is  //c-thing ;  you  cannot  of  nothinj.' 
make  something ;  you  make  nothing  at  last,  and  lose  your 
labour  into  the  bargain. 

Vet  Napoleon  luiJ  a  sincerity:  we  are  to  distinguish  be-  ic 
tween  what  is  superficial  and  what  is  fundamental  in  insin- 
cerity. Across  these  outer  manctuverings-  and  quackeries 
of  his,  which  were  many  and  most  blamable,^  let  us  discern 
withal  that  the  man  had  a  certain  instinctive  ineradicable 
feeling  for  reality  ;  and  did  base  himself  upon  fact,  so  long 
as  he  had  any  basis.  He  has  an  instinct  of  Nature  better 
than  his  culture  was.  His  savnns,  Hourrienne  tells  us,  in 
that  voyage  to  Kgypt  were  one  evening  busily  occupied 
arguing  that  there  could  be  no  (lod.  They  had  proved  it, 
to  their  satisfaction,  by  all  manner  of  logic.  Napoleon  ::o 
looking  up  into  the  stars,  answers,  "  \\.ry  ingenious.  Mes- 
sieurs :  but  w/io  made  all  that  ?  "  The  Atheistic  logic  runs- 
ofT*  from  him  like  water;  the  great  I-'act  stares  him  in  the 
face:  "Who  made  al!  that?"  So  too  in  Practice:  he,  as 
every  man  that  can  be  great,  or  have  victory  in  this  world, 
sees,  througii  all  entanglements,  the  i)ractical  heart  of  the 
matter;  drives  straight  towards  tliat.  When  the  steward 
of  his  Tuileries  Palace  was  exhibiting  the  new  upholstery, 
with  praises,  and  demonstration  how  glorious  it  was,  and 
how  cheaj)  withal.  Napoleon,  making  little  answer,  asked  30 
for  a  pair  of  scissors,  dipt  one  of  th>'  gold  t,i^>.cls  frf»m  a 
window-curtain,  ])ut  it  in  his  pocket,  and  walked  on.      Some 


m 


1^ 


'  II'  11=  H' found  Mut 
-  II'  II-  II'  maii(LUvriiu;s 


'  M'  ir  1.!..iiil:.!.Iu. 
*  II'  II-  IP  runs  off 


■  f 


276 


LECTURES  OxY  HEROES 


^1 


days  afterwards,  he  produced  it  at  the  right  moment,  to  the 
horror  of  his  upholstery  functionary  ;  it  was  not  gold  but 
tinsel !  In  Saint  Helena,  it  is  notable  how  he  still,  to  his 
last  days,  insists  on  the  practical,  the  real.  "Why  talk 
and  complain  ;  above  all,  why  quarrel  with  one  another  ? 
There  is  no  result^  in  it  ;  it  comes  to  nothing  that  one  can 
do.  Say  nothing,  if  one  can  do  nothing ! "  He  speaks 
often  so,  to  his  poor  discontented  followers ;  he  is  like  a 
piece  of   silent  strength    in    the   middle  of    their  morbid 

10  querulousness  there. 

And  accordingly  was  there  not  wiiat  we  can  call  a  faith 
in  him,  genuine  so  far  as  it  went  ?  That  this  new  enor- 
mous Democracy  asserting  itself  here  in  the  French  Revo- 
lution is  an  insuppressible  Fact,  which  the  whole  world, 
with  its  old  forces  and  institutions,  cannot  put  down  ;  this 
was  a  true  insight  of  his,  and  took  his  conscience  and  en- 
thusiasm along  with  it,  —  -x  faith.  And  did  he  not  iTiterpret 
the  dim  purport  of  it  well  ?  '■I. a  carricre  ouverte  a//.\  takns, 
The  implements  to  him  who  can  handle  them  :  '  this  actu- 

20  ally  is  the  truth,  and  even  the  whole  truth  ;  it  includes  what- 
ever the  French  Revolution,  or  any  Revolution,  could  mean. 
Napoleon,  in  his  fir:,t  period,  was  a  true  F)emocrat.  .And 
yet  by  the  nature  of  him,  fostered  too  by  his  military  trade, 
he  knew  that  Democracy,  if  it  were  a  true  thing  at  all,  could 
not  be  an  anarchy  :  the  ni.ui  had  a  heart-hatred  for  anarchy. 
On  that  Twentieth  of  June  (  1792),  15ourrienne  and  he  sat 
in  a  coffee-house,  as  the  nioh  rolled  by  :  Napoleon  expresses 
the  deejjest  contempt  for  persons  in  authority  that  they  do 
not  restrain  tliis  rabble.      On  the  Tenth  of  .\ugust  he  won- 

30  ders  wliy  there  is  no  man  to  command  these  poor  Swiss  : 
they  would  concn'.er  if  tliere  were.  Such  a  faith  in  Demor 
racy,  yet  hatred   of  anarchy,   it   is    that  carries  Napoleon 


through  all  his  great  work. 

1  ir  11-^ 


Throujih  his  brilliant  Italian 


I  csultut 


Tl/K   HE  NO   AS  A'/XO 


277 


Campaigns,  onwards  to  the  Peace  of  Leoben,'  one  would 
say,  his  inspiration  is  ;  '  i'riuiuph  to  the  French  Revolution; 
assertion  of  it  against  these  Austrian  Simulacra  that  pre- 
tend to  call  it  a  Simulacrum  !  '  Witlial,  however,  he  feels, 
and  has  a  right  to  feel,  how  necessary  a  strong  Authority 
is  ;  how  the  Revolution  cannot  prosper  or  last  without  such. 
To  bridle-in  -  that  great  devouring,  self-devouring  French 
Revolution  ;  to  /<////<■  it,  so  that  its  intrinsic  purpose  can  be 
made  good,  tl.  t  it  may  Ijcconie  ori^'.ini,;  and  be  able  to  live 
among  other  organisms  and  /ivwcv/ things,  not  as  a  wasting  lo 
destruction  alone-  is  nut  this  still  what  he  partly  aimed 
at,  as  the  true  purfwrt  of  his  life:  nay  what  he  actually 
managed  to  do  ?  "Through  \\  agrams,  Austerlitzes  ;  triumph 
after  triumph,  —  he  triumphed  so  far.  There  was  an  eye 
to  see  in  this  man,  a  soul  to  dare  and  do.  lie  rose  natu- 
rally to  be  the  King.  All  men  saw  that  he  liUis  such.  The 
common  soldiers  used  to  say  on  the  march  :  *•  i'hese  bab- 
bling Ai'Ourts,  up  at  Paris ;  all  talk  and  no  work !  What 
wonder  it  runs  all  wrong  .'  We  shall  have  to  go  and  put  our 
J\tit  Caporal  there  !  "  Tiiey  went,  and  put  him  there  ;  they  20 
and  France  at  large.  Chief-consulship,  Emperorship,  vic- 
tory over  Europe ;  —  till  the  poor  Lieutenant  of  La  Fere,  not 
unnaturally,  might  seem  to  himself  the  greatest  of  all  men 
that  had  been  in  the  world  for  some  ages. 

but  at  this  point,  I  think,  the  fatal  charlatan-element  got 
the  upper  hand.  He  apostatised  from  his  old  faith  in  I'acts, 
took  to  believing  in  .Semblances;  strove  t>  connect  him- 
self with  Austrian  Dynasties,  Pojiedoins,  witli  the  old  false 
Feudalities,  which  he  once  saw  clearly  to  be  f  iImc  ;  con- 
sidered that  //<■  would  found  "his  Dynasty"  and  so  forth  ;  30 
that  the  enormous  French  Revolution  nu-ant  (mlv  tiiai! 
The  man  was  'given-up'  to  strong  delusion,  iliat  he  sliould 

'  IP  \mi\m\  -  11'  l,rull<;  Ml 

•'  II'  H-  II 'given  up 


% 


1-f 


278 


I.F.CTrKF.S  OX  IIF.KOI.S 


if 


Cf^ 


believe  a  lie;'  a  fearful  but  most  sure  thing.  He  did  not 
know  true  from  false  now  when  he  looked  at  them,  —  the 
fearfulest'  penalty  a  man  pays  for  yielding  to  untruth  of 
heart.     Self-xnA  false  ambition  had  now  become  his  god : 

*  «/>^deception  once  yielded  to,  all  other  deceptions  follow 
naturally  more  and  more.  What  a  paltry  patchwork  of 
theatrical  paper-mantles,  tinsel  and  mummery,  had  this 
man  wrapt  his  own  great  reality  in,  thinking  to  make  it 
more  real  thereby!     His  hollow  I'()pe's-6W<-^'/-//«/,  pretend- 

10  ing  to  be  a  re-establishment  of  Catholicism,  felt  by  himself 
to  be  the  method  of  extirpating  it,  "/</  liiccinc  lie  la  religion." 
his  ceremonial  Coronations,  consecrations  by  the  old  Italian 
Chimera  in  Notre-Dame, —"wanting  nothing  to  complete 
the  pomp  of  it,"  as  Augereau  said,  "nothing  but  the  half- 
million  of  men  who  had  died  to  put  an  end  to  all  that"! 
tTomwell's  Inauguration  was  by  the  Sword  and  Bible; 
what  we  must  call  a  genuinely  trut'  one.  Sword  and  Bible 
were  borne  before  him,  without  any  chimera:  were  not 
these  the  ;<V7/ emblems  of  Puritanism;  its  true  decoration 

20  and  insignia?  It  had  used  them  both  in  ^.  very  real  man- 
ner, and  pretended  io  stand  by  them  now  !  But  this  poor 
Napoleon  mistook :  he  believed  too  much  in  the  Diipe- 
tibility  of  men  ;  saw  no  fact  deeper  in  man  than  Hunger 
and  this!  He  was  mistaken.  Like  a  man  that  should 
build  upon  cloud  ;  his  house  ;ind  he  tall  down  in  confused 
wreck,  and  depart  out  of  llie  world. 

Alas,  in  all  of  us  this  charlatan-element  exists;  and  might 
be  developed,  were  tiio  temptation  strong  enough.  »  Lead 
us  not  into  temptation  ' !     I'.ut  it  is  fatal,  I  say,  that  it  be 

30  developed.  The  thiuLj  into  which  it  enters  as  a  co<inisable 
ingredient  is  ilooniod  tf)  be  altogetlier  transitory  ;  and. 
however  hu;,'e  it  may  /''.'/(•,  is  in  itself  small.  Napoleon's 
working,    accordingly,    what   was   it    with   all  the  noise    it 


IlMcaifulhst 


TllK   HKKO   AS  k/Xa 


279 


made?  A  flash  as  of  gunpowdtT  wide-spread;  a  blazing- 
up  as  of  dry  heath.  For  an  hour  the  whole  Universo 
seems  wrapt  in  smoke  and  flame;  but  only  for  an  hour. 
It  goes  out :  the  Universe  with  its  old  mountains  and 
streams,  its  stars  above  and  kind  soil  beneath,  is  still  there. 

The  Duke  of  Weimar  told  his  friends  always,  To  be  of 
courage;  this  Napoleonism  was  unjust,  a  falsehood,  and 
could  not  last.  It  is  true  doctrine.  The  heavier  this 
Napoleon  trampled  on  the  world,  iioldin^  it  tyrannously 
down,  the  flercer  would  the  world's  recoil  against  him  be,  \o 
one  day.  Injustice  pays  itself  with  frightful  compound- 
interest.  I  am  not  sure  but  he  had  better  have  lost  his 
best  park  of  artillery,  or  had  his  best  regiment  drowned  in 
the  sea,  than  shot  that  poor  (lerman  Hookseiler,  I'alm! 
It  was  a  palpable  tyrannous  murderous  injustice,  which  no 
man,  let  him  paint  an  inch  thick,  could  make-out'  to  be 
other.  It  burnt  deep  into  the  hearts  of  men,  it  and  the 
like  of  it;  suppressed  tire  flashed  in  the  eyes  of  men,  as 
they  thought  of  it, — waiting  their  day  !  Which  day  <•<////<•• 
(lermany  rose  round  him. — What  Napoleon  <//</will  in  the  20 
long-run  amount  to  what  he  d\A  Jiisf/y;  what  Nature  with 
her  laws  will  sanction.  To  what  of  reality  was  in  him  ;  to 
that  and  nothing  more.  The  rest  was  all  smoke  and  waste. 
/.<i  iiirrihr  ourcrfi-  aux  fii/ins :  that  great  true  Message, 
which  has  yet  to  articulate  and  fultil  itself  everywhere,  he 
left  in  a  most  inarticulate  state.  He  was  a  great  ehanche, 
a  rude-draught  never-  completed-;  as  indeed  what  great 
man   is  other''?      Left  in  too  rude  a  state,   alas! 

His  notions  of  the  world,  as  he  expresses  them  there  at 
•St.  Helena,  are  almost  tragical  to  consider.      He  seems  to  30 
feel  the  most  unaffected  surprise  that  it  has  all  gone  so  ; 
that   he  is  flun^r-out '  on   the   rock   here,  and  the  World  is 


u 


I   M 


1  W  W  II"  make  out 
^•-'  not  III  11'  IP 


■'■  II'  H'  nut 

*  11'  11-  IPriunguut 


280 


I.IICTIKKS  OX  HEROES 


I    f 


I- 


Still  moving'  on  its  axis.     France  is  great,  and  all-great  ; 
and  at  bottom,  he  is  France.     Fn},'iand  itself,  he  says,  is 
by  Nature  only  an  api^ndaye  of  France;  "another  Isle  of 
Oleron  to   France."     So   it  was  h  Xifun;  by  Napoleon- 
Nature  ;  and  yet  look  how  in  fact  —  Hkrk  am  I !     He  can- 
not understand  it :  inconceivable  that  the  reality  has  not 
corresponded  to  his  pro<,'ram  of  it ;  that  France  was  not 
:ill-}jreat,  that  he  was  not  France.     '.Strong  delusion,'  that 
he  should  believe  the  thing  to  be  which  is  not  !      The  com- 
10  p.ict,  clear-seeing,  decisive  Italian  nature  of  him,  strong, 
genuine,   which   he   once   had,    has  enveloped    itself,  half- 
dissolved'  itself,  in  a  turbid  atmosphere  of  French  fanfar- 
onade.''   The  world  was  not  disposed  to  be  trodden-down ' 
underfoot ;  to  be  bound  into  masses,  and  built  together,  as 
/le  liked,  for  a  pedestal  to  France  and  him :  the  world  had 
quite  other  purposes  in  view!     Naiwleon's  astonishment  is 
extreme.      Hut   alas,  what  help  now  .>     He  had  gone  that 
way  of  his;  and  Nature  also  had  gone  her  way.      Having 
once  parted  with  Reality,  he  tumbles  helpless  in  Vacuity': 
^o  no  rescue  for  him.     He  had  to  sink  there,  mournfully  as 
man  .seldom  did  ;  and  break  his  great  heart,  and  die,— 
this  poor  Napoleon  :  a  great  im])Iement  too  soon  wasted, 
till  it  was  useless  •  our  last  Great  Man  ! 


Our  last,  in  a  double  sense.  For  here  linailv  these  wide 
roamings  of  ours  through  so  many  times  and  places,  in 
search  and  stu.ly  of  Heroes,  arc  to  terminate.  I  am  sorry 
for  it:  there  was  pleasure  for  me  in  tliis  business,  if  also 
much  i)ain.  It  is  a  great  subject,  and  a  most  grave  an<l 
wide  one,  this  which,  not  to  be  too  gnive  about  it,  I  have 
30  named  /f,-ro--a<ors/iip.  It  enters  deeitiy,  as  1  think,  into 
the   secret  of    Mankinds    ways  and   vitaiest  '  interests    in 


'  H'  11^  IPhalf  .lissolvcd 
MI«  IIMP  Fanfaronade. 


■'  II'  II-  !I'  trixldLii  down 
••  IP  vilallest 


THE   ni-.NO  AS   KING 


281 


this  \v(trl(l,  iind  is  well  worth  L'xi)!.iininx  it  present.  With 
six  months,  instead  tif  six  d.iys,  we  x\\v^\\\  have  done  better. 
I  promised  to  breiik-;;roiind  '  on  it  ;  I  know  not  whether  I 
have  evin  manaj;ed  to  do  that.  I  have  had  to  tear  it  u|> 
in  the  rudest  manner  in  order  to  j;et  into  it  at  all.  Often 
enou;,di,  with  these  al)riii)t  utterances  throw n-ouf  isolated, 
unexplained,  has  your  tolerance  been  put  to  the  trial. 
Tolerance,  p;'tient  candour,  all  hopinj;  favour  and  kindness, 
which  I  will  not  sjieak  of  at  i)resent.  ihe  .accomplished 
and  distinj,'uished,  the  beautiful,  tiic  wise,  somethinj;  of  lo 
what  is  best  in  Kn<;Iand,  have  listened  patiently  to  my  rude 
words.  With  many  feelin;,'s,  I  heartily  thank  you  all;  and 
say,  (lood  be  with  you  ail ! 


'  II'  II-'  IPlmak  Kroumi 


II'  II-  IP  thrown  out 


X  .  IJ 


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LKCTiJki:  I 

THE    HERO   AS    OIVIMTV.      or»t\.      lAOAMSM  :    S(  AMHXAVU.V 

MVTIIOI.CMiV 

Heroes:  Universal  History  consists  essentiallv  nf  their  unitt-.l 
IMoKraphies.  Kelinion  not  a  man's  iliiir.  ii-i nid.  hut  liis  pr.u tit al 
6t/ie/A\yout  himself  and  tlie  I  nivers.. :  Untli  with  Mm  and  Nations 
it  is  the  One  fact  aljout  them  whirl,  crcativtiv  d.tcrmiius  all  the 
rest.  Heathenism:  Christianity:  Mod,  rn  Snptii  i>ni.  The  Hero 
as  Divinity.  Pajjanism  a  fai  t ;  not  Ouai  kcrv.  nor  .MiLuorv  :  Not 
to  be  pretentiously  -explained  ';  to  he  h)oked  at  as  old  Thought. 
and  with  sympathy  (p.  i ). 

Nature  no  more  seems  divine  except  to  the  I' rojjhet  or  Poet, 
because  men  have  ceased  to  //»;/>(•.•  To  the  I'ayan  Thinkir.  as  t., 
a  child-man,  all  was  either  godlike  or  (Jod.  Canopus :  Man. 
Hero-worship  the  basis  of  Religion.  I.oyaltv.  Society.  A  Hero 
not  the  'creature  of  the  time":  Hero-worship  indestructihi.'. 
Johnson :    Voltaire  (8). 

.Scandinavian  Paganism  the  Kelij,don  of  our  Fathers.  Ireland, 
the  home  of  the  Xorse  I'oets.  described.  TIk-  /CMi.  Ihe  prin,..ry 
characteristic  of  Xorse  Paganism,  the  impensonation  of  tiie  vi.sihie 
workings  of  Nature.  Jotuns  and  the  <  iods.  Kire :  IVost :  'riiunder : 
The  Sun :  Sea-Tempest.  Mythus  of  the  Creation :  The  Life- 
Tree  Igdrasil.     The  modern  ^  Afni/iiiu-  of  the  Universe' ( i,S). 

The  Norse  Creed,  as  recorded,  the  summation  of  several  suc- 
cessive sy.stems  :  Originally  tlie  shape  ^iven  to  the  national  thought 
hy  their  first  •  Man  of  C.enius.'  Odin  :  He  has  no  history  or  date  ; 
yet  was  no  mere  adjective,  but  a  man  of  tiesh  and  l)lood.  Ilou 
deified.  The  World  of  Nature,  to  every  man  a  Fantasy  of  Him- 
self (24). 

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284 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


Odin  tlie  inventor  of  Runes,  of  Letters  and  Poetry.  His  recep- 
tion as  a  Hero  :  tlie  pattern  Norse-Man  ;  a  Cod  :  His  shadow  over 
the  whole  History  of  his  People  (31). 

The  essence  of  Norse  Paganism,  not  so  much  Morality,  as  a 
sincere  recognition  of  Nature:  Sincerity  Ijetter  than  ( Gracefulness. 
The  Allegories,  the  after-creations  of  the  Faith.  Main  practical 
IJelief:  Hall  of  Odin:  Valkyrs:  Destiny:  Necessity  of  Valour. 
Its  worth :  Their  Sea-Kings,  Woodcutter  Kings,  our  spiritual 
Progenitors.     The  growth  of  Odinism  (34). 

The  strong  simplicity  of  Norse  lore  cjuite  unrecognised  by  Gray. 
Thor's  veritable  Norse  rage  :  ISalder,  tlie  wliite  Sungod.  How 
the  old  Norse  heart  loves  the  Thunder-god,  and  sports  with  him : 
Huge  Brobdingnag  genius,  needing  only  to  be  tamed-down  into 
Shakspeares,  Goetlies.  Truth  in  the  Norse  Songs :  This  World  a 
show.  Thor's  Invasion  of  Jotunheim.  The  Ragnarok,  or  Twi- 
light of  the  Gods :  The  Old  must  die,  that  the  New  and  Better 
may  be  born.  Thor's  last  appearance.  The  Norse  Creed  a  Con- 
secration of  Valour.  It  and  the  whole  Past  a  possession  of  the 
Present  (39). 

LECi  JRE    II 

THE    HERO   AS    PROPHET.      MAHOMET:   ISLAM 

The  Hero  no  longer  regarded  as  a  God,  but  as  one  god-inspired. 
All  Heroes  primarily  of  the  same  stuff ;  differing  according  to  their 
reception.  The  welcome  of  its  Heroes,  the  truest  test  of  an  epoch. 
Odin  :  Burns  (p.  48). 

Mahomet  a  true  Prophet;  not  a  scheming  Impostor.  A  Great 
Man,  and  therefore  first  of  all  a  sincere  man :  No  man  to  be 
judged  merely  by  his  faults.  David  the  Hebrew  King.  Of  all 
acts  for  man  repentance  the  most  divine :  The  deadliest  sin,  a 
supercilious  consciousness  of  none  (50). 

Arabia  described.  The  Arabs  always  a  gifted  people  ;  of  wild 
strong  feelings,  and  of  iron  restraint  over  these.  Their  Religiosity  ; 
Their  Star-worship :  Their  Prophets  and  inspired  men  ;  n  Job 
downwards.  Tlieir  Holy  Places.  Mecca,  its  site,  hi  y  and 
government  (54). 

Mahomet.  His  youth  :  His  fond  Grandfather.  Had  no  book- 
learning  :  Travels  to  the  Syrian  Fairs ;  and  first  comes  in  contact 


CARL  VLB'S  Si'ALUAK  V 


2S5 


with  the  Christian  Religion.  An  aitojjethcr  solid,  hrotherly,  genu- 
ine man :  A  good  laugh,  and  a  good  Hash  of  anger  in  him  withal 
(S8). 

Marries  Kadijah.  Hegins  his  I'rophet-career  at  forty  years  of 
age.  Allah  Akbar ;  ('.oi\  is  great:  Islam;  we  must  submit  to 
Clod.  Do  we  not  all  live  in  Islam.?  .Mahomet,  -the  Prophet  of 
God' (6 1). 

The  good  Kadijah  believes  in  him  :  Mahomet's  gratitude.  His 
slow  progress:  Among  forty  of  liis  kindred,  young  Ali  alone 
joined  him.  His  good  Uncle  expostulates  with"  him:  Maliomet, 
bursting  into  tears,  persists  in  his  mission.  The  Hegira.  Propa- 
gating by  the  sword  :  First  get  your  sword  :  A  thing  will  propagate 
itself  as  it  can.  Nature  a  just  umpire.  Mahomet's  Creed  un- 
speakably better  than  tiie  wooden  idolatries  and  jangling  Syrian 
Sects  extirpated  by  it  (66). 

The  Koran,  the  universal  standard  of  Mahometan  life:  An 
imperfectly,  badly  written,  Ijut  genuine  book  :  Ivnthusiastic  extem- 
pore preaching,  amid  the  hot  haste  of  wrestling  with  tiesh-an.l- 
blood  and  spiritual  enemies.  Its  direct  poetic  insight.  The 
World,  Man,  human  Compassion  ;  all  wliolly  miraculous  to  Ma- 
homet (73). 

His  religion  did  not  succeed  by  '  being  easv  ' :  None  can.  The 
sensual  part  of  it  not  of  Mahomet's  making.  He  himstlf,  frugal ; 
patched  his  own  clothes ;  proved  a  hero  in  a  rough  actual  trial  of 
twenty-three  years.  Traits  of  his  generosity  and  resignation. 
His  total  freedom  from  cant  (So). 

His  moral  precepts  not  always  of  the  superfinest  sort ;  yet  is 
there  always  a  tendency  to  good  in  them.  His  Heaven  and  Hell 
sensual,  yet  not  altogether  so.  Infinite  Nature  of  Duty.  The 
evil  of  sensuality,  in  the  slavery  to  jjlea.sant  things,  not  in  the  en- 
joyment of  them.  Mahometanism  a  religion  heartily  hilieved. 
To  the  Arab  Nation  it  was  as  a  birth  from  darkness  ii.to  light: 
Arabia  first  became  alive  by  means  ol  it  (S4). 


^  M 


r 


I 


ii 


286  LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


LECTURE    HI 

THE  HERO  AS  POET.   DANTE;  SHAKSPEARE 

The  Hero  as  Divinity  or  Prophet,  inconsistent  with  the  modern 
progress  of  science:  The  Hero  I'oet,  a  figure  common  to  all  ages. 
All  Heroes  at  bottom  the  same ;  the  different  sphere  constituting 
the  grand  distinction:  Examples.     Varieties  of  aptitude  (p.  89). 

Poet  and  Prophet  meet  in  I'ates :  Their  (iospel  the  same,  for 
the  Beautiful  and  the  ( iood  are  one.  All  men  somewhat  of  poets  ; 
and  the  highest  Poets  far  from  perfect.  Prose,  and  Poetry  or 
musical  Thoiii^ht.  Song  a  kind  of  inarticulate  uiifathomaI)le 
speech:  All  deep  things  are  Song.  The  Hero  as  Divinity,  as 
Prophet,  and  then  only  as  Poet,  no  indication  chat  our  estimate 
of  the  Great  Man  is  diminishing:  The  Poet  seems  to  be  losing 
caste,  but  it  is  rather  that  our  notions  of  God  are  rising  higher  (91 ). 

Shakspeare  and  Dante,  Saints  of  Poetry.  Dante  :  His  history, 
in  his  Book  and  Portrait.  His  scholastic  education,  and  its  fruit 
of  subtlety.  His  miseries:  Love  of  Beatrice:  His  marriage  not 
happy.  A  banished  man  :  Will  never  return,  '*  to  plead  guilty 
be  the  condition.  His  wanderings:  ''■Come  uuro  calie"  At 
the  Court  of  Delia  Scala.  The  great  soul  of  Dante,  homeless  on 
earth,  made  its  home  more  and  more  in  Eternity.  His  mvstic, 
unfathomable  Song.     Deatli  :  Buried  at  Ravenna  (98). 

His  Divina  Commedia  a  Song:  (Jo  lieep  enough,  there  is  music 
everywhere.  The  sincerest  of  Poems :  It  has  all  been  as  if  molten, 
in  the  hottest  furnace  of  his  soul.  Its  Intensity,  and  Pictorial 
power.  The  three  parts  make-up  the  true  Unseen  World  of  the 
Middle  Ages:  How  the  Christian  Dante  felt  Good  and  Evil  to  he 
the  two  polar  elements  of  this  Creation.  Paganism  and  Christian- 
ism  (103). 

Ten  silent  centuries  found  a  voice  in  Dante.  The  thing  that  is 
uttered  from  the  inmost  parts  of  a  man's  soul  differs  altogether 
from  what  is  uttered  by  the  outer.  The  '  uses '  of  Dante :  We 
will  not  estimate  the  Sun  by  the  quantity  of  gas  it  saves  us.  Ma- 
homet and  Dante  v-ontrasted.  Let  a  man  tfo  his  work  ;  the  fruit 
of  it  is  the  care  of  .Anotlier  than  lie  (112). 

As  Dante  iml)0(lies  musically  the  Inner  Life  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  su  does   Shaks))e;ue  embody  the    Outer   Life  which  grew 


CAKLVLE'S  SUMMARY 


287 


therefrom.  The  strange  outbudding  of  English  Existence  which 
we  call  '  Elizabethan  Era.'  Shakspeare  the  chief  of  all  Poets : 
His  calm,  all-seeing  Intellect :    His  marvellous  Portrait-painting 

(HS). 

The  Poet's  first  gift,  as  it  is  all  men's,  that  he  have  intellect 
enough,  —  tliat  he  be  able  to  see.  Intellect  the  summary  of  all 
human  gifts :  Human  intellect  and  vulpine  intellect  contrasted. 
Shakspeare's  instinctive  unconscious  greatness:  His  works  a  part 
of  Nature,  and  partaking  of  her  inexhaustible  depth.  Shakspeare 
greater  than  Dante  ;  in  that  he  not  only  sorrowed,  but  triumphed 
over  his  sorrows.  His  mirthfulness,  and  genuine  overflowing  love 
of  laughter.  His  Historical  Plays,  a  kind  of  National  Epic.  The 
IJattle  of  Agincourt :  A  noble  Patriotism,  far  other  than  the  '  in- 
difference '  sometimes  ascribed  to  him.  His  works,  like  so  many 
windows,  tlirough  which  we  see  glimpses  of  the  world  that  is  in 
him  (120). 

Dante  the  melodious  Priest  of  Middle-Age  Catholicism:  Out 
of  this  Shakspeare  too  there  rises  a  kind  of  Universal  Psalm, 
not  unfit  to  make  itself  heard  among  still  more  sacred  Psalms. 
Shakspeare  an  'unconscious  Prophet';  and  therein  greater  and 
truer  than  Mahomet.  This  poor  Warwickshire  Peasant  worth 
more  to  us  than  a  whole  regiment  of  highest  Dignitaries:  Indian 
Empire,  or  Shakspeare,  —  which  ?  An  English  King,  whom  no 
time  or  chance  can  dethrone  :  A  raliying-sign  anu  bond  of  brother- 
hood for  all  Saxondom :  Wheresoever  English  men  and  women 
are,  they  will  say  to  one  another,  '  Yes.  this  Shakspeare  is  ouxsT 

(127). 


LECTURE    IV 

THE    HKRO    AS    PRIKST.       LUTHER;    REFORMATION:    KNOX; 
PURITANISM 


The  Priest  a  kind  of  Prophet ;  but  more  familiar,  as  the  daily 
enlightener  of  daily  life.  A  true  Reformer  he  who  appeals  to 
Heaven's  invisible  justice  against  Earth's  visible  force.  The 
finished  Poet  often  a  symptom  that  his  epoch  iteelf  has  reached 
perfection,  and  finished.  Alas,  the  battling  Reformer,  too,  is  at 
times  a  needful  .nnr!  inevitable  jilicnomenon  :  Offences  do  accu- 
mulate, till  they  become  insupportable.     Forms  of  Belief,  modes 


"51 


288 


Vtli 


a 


*i 


i:  J 


r 


LECTUKES  ON  HEKOEi 


of  life  must  perish  ;  yet  the  (;,„   '  of  the  I'ast  survives,  an  ever 
lasting'  possession  for  us  all  (p.  132). 

Idols,  or  visible  recognised  Syml.ols.  conim.n  to  ail  Relii,nons- 
Hateful  only  when  insincere:  The  property  of  every  Hero,  that 
he  come  back  to  sincerity,  to  reality:  Protestantism  and  'private 
judgment        Nr    ming   communion    possiI,le    a.nonj;    men    «h.. 

ou  to7r  '  '"  ^^     '""'   "-°-''---'>-'  -ho  delivers  n,en 

out  of  darkness  mto  l,«ht.  \ot  abolition  of  Hero-worship  does 
I  rotestantism  mean  ;  but  rather  a  whole  World  of  Heroes  of  ,i„. 
cere,  believing  men  (I3<S). 

Luther;  his  obscure,  seemin«ly.insi«nificant  birth.  His  vouth 
schooled  m  adversity  and  stern  reality.  Hecomes  a  Monk  '  His 
religious  despair :  Discovers  a  Latin  IJible  :  Xo  wonde  •  he  should 
venerate  the  IJible.  He  visits  Rome.  Meets  the  I'ope's  fire  llv 
fire  At  the  Diet  of  Worms :  The  greatest  moment  in  the  modern 
History  of  men  (146). 

Tl^oM^u'r". '*'^°"°''"'  ^"■'  "°' '"  '"=  '''^'''^^'^  '"  t''^  Reformation. 
The  Old  Religion  once  true  :  The  cry  of  •  Xo  Popery '  foolish  enough 

Frlnl  p'^'"i    '.'■°^^«'f  *'«■"  ""^  ^--^'1  =  < German  Literature  and  the 
!•  reach  Revolution  rather  considerable  signs  of  life'  (156) 

How  Luther  held  the  sovereignty  of  the  Reformation  and  kept 

strength:  His  d.akct  became  the  language  of  all  writing.  X,', 
mortal  heart  to  be  called  braver,  ever  lived  in  that  Teutonic-  Kin- 
dred, whose  character  is  valour:  ^■et  a  most  gentle  heart  withal 
full  of  pity  and  love,  as  the  truly  valiant  heart  ever  is:  Traits  of 
character  from  his  Table-Talk :  His  daughter's  Deathbed-  The 
miraculous  in  Xature.     His  love  of  Music.     His  Portrait  r,  vS) 

I  uritanism  the  only  phasis  of  Protestantism  that  ripened  into  a 
living  faith  :  Defective  enough,  but  genuine.  Its  fruit  in  the  world 
Tl,e  sailing  of  the  Mayflower  from  Delft  Haven  the  beginnin-^  of 
American  Saxondom.  In  the  history  of  .Scotland  properly  "but 
one  epoch  of  world-interest.  -  the  Reformation  by  Knox-  a 
'  nation  of  heroes ' :  a  believing  nation.  The  Puritanism  of  .Scot- 
land became  that  of  England,  of  Xew  England  (164) 

Knox  'guilty'  of  being  the  bravest  of  all  Scotchmen:   Did  not 
seek  the  post  of  Prophet.      At  tiie  siege  of  St.  Andrew's  Castle 
Lmphatically  a  sincere  man.     A  (;alley-slavo  on  the  River  I  oire' 
An  Old-Hebrew  Prophet,  in  the  gui.se  of  an  Edinburgh   Minister 
ot  the  Sixteenth  Century  ( 1 6.S). 


CARL  YLK'S  SUMMAR  Y 


289 


Knox  and  (Juecn  Mary  :  '  Who  are  you,  that  presume  to  school 
the  nobles  and  sovereijin  of  this  realm  ? '  '  Madam,  a  subject  horn 
within  the  same.'  His  intolc-..iice  —  of  falsehoods  and  knaveries. 
Not  a  mean  acrid  man  :  else  he  had  never  been  virtual  President 
and  Sovereign  of  .Scotland.  His  unexpected  vein  of  drollery: 
A  cheery  social  man;  practical,  cautious-hopeful,  patient.  His 
'devout  imai^ination '  of  a  Theocracy,  or  (Government  «)f  Clod. 
Hildebrand  wished  a  Theocracy;  Cromwell  wished  it,  fought  for 
it :  Mahomet  attained  it.  In  one  form  or  other,  it  is  the  one  thing 
to  be  struggled  for  (171). 


LKCTUKK    V 


TIIK    HKKO    .\S    MAN    OK    I.KTTKKS.       JOHNSON,    KOUSSKAl',    IIUKNS 

The  Hero  as  Man  of  Letters  altogether  a  product  of  these  new 
ages  :  A  Heroic  Soul  in  very  strange  guise.  Literary  men  ;  genu- 
ine and  spurious.  Fichte's  'Divine  Idea  of  the  World':  His 
notion  of  the  True  Man  of  Letters.  Goethe,  the  Pattern  Literary 
Hero  (p.  177). 

The  disorganised  condition  of  Literature,  the  summary  of  all 
otiier  modern  disorganisations.  The  Writer  of  a  true  Hook  our 
true  modern  Preacher.  Miraculous  inHuence  of  Hooks:  The 
I  lebrew  Bible.  Books  are  now  our  actual  I  niversity,  our  Church, 
our  Parliament.  With  Books,  Democracy  is  inevitable.  TJioiiji^/tt 
the  true  thaumaturgic  influence,  by  which  man  works  all  things 
whatsoever  (1S2). 

Organisation  of  the  'Literary  Guild':  Needful  discipline; 
'  priceless  lessens  '  of  Poverty.  The  Literary  Priesthood,  and  its 
importance  to  societ).  Chinese  Literary  Governors,  lalkn  into 
strange  times  ;  and  strange  things  need  10  he  'ipeculat'M  uo'^n  (190). 

An  age  of  Scepticism:  The  very  possibility  of  H  rc'sm  for- 
mally abnegated.  Benthamism  an  rtv/i'Jj  Heroism,  ^icepticism. 
Spiritual  Paralysis,  Insincerity:  Heroes  gone-out;  Qu-'^'I^s  come- 
in.  Our  brave  Chatham  himself  lived  t'  .  strangest  mimetic  life 
all  along.  X'iolent  remedial  revulsions  :  artisms.  French  Revo- 
lutions :  The  Age  of  Scepticism  passing  away.  Let  each  Man 
look  to  the  mending  of  his  own  Life  {195;. 

Johnson  one  of  our  Oeat  English  Souls.     His  miserable  Youth 


■^*  it 


#  - 

a ,  ■■ 
n;  : 


290 


LECTUJiKS  OX  HEROES 


and  Hypochondria:  Stubborn  Stlf-hdp.  His  loyal  submission 
to  what  is  really  higher  than  himself.  How  he  stood  by  the  old 
Formulas :  Not  less  original  for  that.  Formulas  ;  their  Use  and 
Abuse.  Johnson's  unconscious  sincerity.  His  Twofold  (Josj^el, 
a  kind  of  Moral  I'rudente  and  clear  Hatred  of  Cant.  His  writings 
sincere  and  full  of  substance.  Architectural  nol)leness  of  his 
Dictionary.  Hoswell,  with  all  his  faults,  a  true  hero-worshipper 
of  a  true  Hero  (204). 

Rousseau  a  morbid,  excitable,  spasmodic  man ;  intense  rather 
than  strong.  Had  not  the  invalual)le  'talent  of  Silence.'  His 
Face,  expressive  of  his  character.  His  Ego.sm  :  Hungry  for  the 
praises  of  men.  His  books :  Passionate  appeals,  which  did  once 
more  struggle  towards  Reality :  A  Prophet  to  his  Time ;  as  he 
could,  and  as  the  Time  could.  Ro.sepink,  and  artificial  bedizen- 
ment.  Fretted,  exasperated,  till  tiie  heart  of  him  went  mad:  He 
could  be  cooped,  starving,  into  garrets ;  laugiicd  at  as  a  maniac ; 
but  he  could  not  be  hindered  from  setting  the  world  on  fire  (212). 
Burns  a  genuine  Hero,  in  a  withered,  unl)elieving,  secondhand 
Century.  The  largest  .soul  of  all  the  British  lands,  came  among 
us  in  the  shape  of  a  hard-handed  Scottish  Peasant.  His  heroic 
Father  and  Mother,  and  tiieir  sore  struggle  through  life.  His 
rough  untutored  dialect:  Affectionate  joyousness.  His  writings 
a  poor  fragment  of  him.  His  conversational  gifts :  High  duch- 
esses and  low  ostlers  alike  fa.scinated  by  him  {216). 

Resemblance  between  Burns  and  Alirabeau.  Official  Superiors  : 
The  greatest '  thinking-faculty  '  in  this  land  superciliously  dispensed 
with.  Hero-worship  under  strange  conditions.  The  notablest 
phasis  of  Burns's  history  his  visit  to  Edinburgh.  For  one  man 
who  can  stand  prosperity,  there  are  a  hundred  that  will  stand 
adversity.     Literary  Lionism  (220). 


II 


LECTURE    VI 


HI 


THE    .lERO    AS    KING.       rUOMWEl.L,    NAPOLEON 
RKVOLUTIO.NISM 


MODERN 


The  King  the  most  important  of  (ireat  Men ;  the  summary  of 
all  the  various  figures  of  Heroism.  To  enthrone  the  Ablest  Man, 
the  true  business  of  all  Social  procedure ;  The  Ideal  of  Constitu- 


ill 


CAhJ.VI./.S   St  .UMAh\' 


2f)\ 


tions.     Tolerable  and  intolerabl-  approximations.     Divine  KiKhls 
ami  Diabolic  Wrongs  (p.  2:15).  ,,,    .,      . 

The  world's  sad  predicament:  that  of  liaviny  _its_Al)le-Mj>Ji  t<> 
seek,  and' not  knowing  in  vvl.at  manner  to  pnn  in^d  aJ)oyL''-  '  'i*-' 
e?i  of  Mod"ernl<?:olv.ti<.nism  dates  from  Lutlier.  I  lie  French 
Revolution  no  mere  act  01  (.en.ral  Insanity:  Truth  cl;ul  m  hell- 
tire-  the  Trump  of  Do..m  to  I'iausibiliti.s  and  i-mpty  Routme. 
The'cryof  •l.il)ettv  and  K-iuaiity  '  at  l.ottum  tho  repudiation  of 
sham  Heroes.  1  le'ro-worslii^  exists  forey:i^aml_evci2wlicre  ;  Ijom 
divine  ador.itioii  clownjojhe  comnioiijjJiLrtes.ies  «>l  man  and  man: 
The'soulof  Order,  to  wliicli  all  tliin-s,  Revolutions  included,  work. 
Some  Cromwell  or  .Vii.oleon  the  neccssan-  tijiish  .d  Sanscul.mism. 
The  matiner  in  which  Kind's  were  made,  and  Kiniishi^^UselMirst 

took  ri.se  ^2 29).^  -,,,•.■         •     , 

-FlBtanism  a  section  ofth..  nnivers:d  war  ..t  I'.eli.l  a.i;amst 
Make'-FeTiTve.  Laud  a  weak  ill-starred  Pedant:  in  liis  spasmodic 
vehemence 'heeding  no  voice  of  prudence,  no  cry  of  pity.  Uni- 
versal necessitv  for  true  Forms:  How  to  distinguish  between 
True  and  False.  Tlie  nakedist  R.ality  prefend.le  to  any  empty 
Semblance,  however  di,i,'nitied  (234).* 

The  work  of  tlie  I'uritans.  The  Sceptical  Kightecnth  century, 
and  its  constitutional  estimate  of  Cromwell  and  his  associates.  No 
wish  to  dispara-e  such  charactus  as  Hampden,  l-.liot  I'ym :  a 
most  constitutional,  unblamal .Ic,  .li-niticl  set  of  men.  "I  he  ru.u..;cd 
outcast  Cromwell,  the  man  of  them  all  in  wh-,.m  one  stdl  linds 
>,mian  stuff.     The  One  thin^  worth   revolting  t'-r  (^37)- 

Cromwell-s  ■  hvi.o.Tisv.-  an  imimssil.K-   the..ry.      Ihs  pious  Life 

.  a  Farmer  until'  forty  years  of  ..-e.      1 1  is  public  successes  honest 

.accesses  ..f  a  brave  man.      His  parti.ipation  in  the  km-  s  <leath 

no  .rround  of  condemnati..n.      1 1  is  eye  for  f  :icts  no  inpocnte  s  gift. 

His  Ironsides  the  c-mbodiment  of  this  insi-ht  ot  h.s  (zr~)- 

Know  the  men  that  may  be  trusted  :  .Mas.  this  ,s  yet.  m  these 
days,  verv  far  from  us.     Cromweirs  lupochon.lnn  :  His  reputed 
confusion  of  speech:  His  habit  of  prayer.     His  speeches  unpre- 
meditated and  full  of  meaning.      His   ,rtnc>,<rs ;    called   •  ,.ig 
and    'dissimulation':     Not    one    f:dsehood    proved   against   him 

^'■^Foolish  charge  of  '  ambition.'  Tl:e  gre:U  E.npire  of  Silence  : 
Noble  silent  men.  seattered  hen-  .n.!  there,  each  m  his  depart- 
ment: silendv  thinking,  silently  hoping,   silently  wnri.u>g.      U^O 


ill 


292 


i-aCTU/iJiS  ON  HKfiOKS 


•  f\ 


Humes  fanatic- Hypocrite  thenrv      u^     •    .. 
where  a  A'/Wi^is  in  nil  n,  I'     ""^'^  '"dispensable  every- 

Puritanism   ^o  ^.■n:   n?r?^"'r.  ""' ^'"^l     ^-'"well,  a.,  Kin«  .  f 

'•Ut  the  way  of  I)c  ,  "tUm  il  '  •"""'""''  ""'"""t'  for  hin, 
Mother.  It\va.,  not  o  „•,  'll  '^'-'"« /'«>-:  His  pcH,r  ol.l 
have  men  Ju.l^ed  h.n,  ^ryweU  7'ST  '  '"^  ''''''''''  '  "''^ 

The    French    Revolution,    the    'third    irt'   of    i. 


3 


H« 


IP    .  . 

C.A./,. 
(•/../..  . 

Hssity  r 

Hon     . 

I'.J.tll.     . 
Utt.      .    . 
Mhluht    . 
E.-Corr.  . 
L.I..     .   . 

/..an,/ A/.  . 

Koran     .    . 

C- Trans.  . 
Sartor  .  . 
Tcut.Myth. 


AHHRKVIATIONS 

.   (>n    Hi-r<K%,    ll».r..-W..r>lii|..  4ml  the   H.rolc   In    IIMory.    Six 
l^tures;    H.'portfd   with   Kntendithuw   and  Addition*.     Hy 
ThnMLiH  Carlyk-.     I.imd.,  1841. 
.   <hi    llcnic-s   ll.r(.-\V>.Mhi|),  and   the    Heroic   in    History.     Six 
Leitur.n:    Ri.,«)rtid   with    Knicndatlons  and   A.lditi.ms.     Hy 
'Ihonian  Carlyle.     Sicond  Kdition.     I.ond.,  iS^j. 
.   On    ll.riK-.,    H.ro.\Vnr),hlp,  and   tliu   Htroic   In    History.    Six 
r-fcturen:    Kf,Hirt.d   with   Knwnd.itlon*  and  Additions.     Ity 
Thonm  Carlyli-.      Tliird  Edition.     I.ond.,  1.S46. 
.    Thonw!*  tarlylf.     A   History  of  tlio   First    l"rty   V.-ars  of   I  111 
I.lfi',  b)      iniis  Anthony  Iroiidu.     a  vols.     I.ond.,  iSiji. 
■rhonus  Crlyli..     A  lli.torv  of  HU  Lift-  in  l.omlon,  by  Janws 
Anihonv  Kroudo.     2  vols.     I.ond.,  iSwi. 
.    Critii.il  .,,,,1   .Ml,nll.,noous  Kss-iys:   ClU'ttrd  and   Kepublishi-d 
by   'I  li..in.is  C.iilyl,..     4   vols.      Iloston,   i.M.o. 
Ken.lnis,,na-s  by    I  honias   Cirlyl.^.     Kijitud    by   Charlt's    Kllof 

Norton.      J   vols.      l.ond.,    I.S.S;. 
l:.irly  I  .tttTs  of  I  hom.iH  Carlyle,  !Si4-i,Sjr,.     Kdlted  by  Charles 
i;iiot  Norton.      I.ond.,  iS.Sr). 
.    I.etf.rs  of   Thomas  C.irlylf,  i,S2r,-,,Sj6.     Kdlted  by  Charles  Kllot 
Norton.     I.ond.,  i.S.S;. 
lb.-  I. if-  of  I.ntlKr  Written  by  llinistdf.    ColU-ctud  and  Arranst-d 

by  M.  .Mil  hilet.     Tr.insLitud  by  Win.  Il.izlitt.     I..,nd.,  184*,. 
■riic    Corrisix.ndfncc   of     Thomas    Carlyl,.   .md    K.ilph    Waldo 

i:niers.in.   i.S,4-i,S;2.     2  vols.     Iloston,  i.S,,,,. 
I.ictuns  on    tlif    History  of    l.lfer.itun..    Delivered   by  Thomas 
Carlyle,  April  to  July,  iSjS.     Now  I'rinted  for  tlu;  I'irst  Time. 
Kditfd,  with   I'refatu  and   Notes,  by   I'rof.  J,    Kcay   Greene. 
I.ond.,  iS(;2. 
Lettirs   and   Memorials  of   J,,ne   Welsh  Carlyle.     I'repared   for 
ri.l>lication  by  -ihom.is  Carlyle.     ICdited   by  James  Anthony  ' 
Kroude.     3  vols.     I.ond.,   1.SS3. 
The    Koran:    Commonly   Called  the   Alcoran   of    Mohammed; 
Transl.i'.jd  into  Knglish  .  .  .  by  GeorRe  Sale,  (Jent.     A    New 
V.C\>'  I.ond.,  William  TeRg,  n.d. 

'.'"ales  I.,   .vlnsaus.  Tieck,  Richfer.  Translatetl  fr.ini  the  German 

by   Tliom.is  Carlyle.     2  vols.     I.ond.,  1874. 
Carlyle,   S.irtor    Kes;irtus.     Kdlted    by   Archibald    MacMechan. 

Iloston,  i.S<)().     Atliena-um  I'ress  Series. 
Teutonic  Mytbolotv.     l!y  J.irob  Grimm.     Tr.-inslatid  from  the 
Fourth  Edition  b>  James  Steven  SUllybrass.     4  vols.     Lond.. 
1882.  ' 


NOTES 


LECTURE    1.     THE    HERO   AS    DIVINITY 

Park  1,  Link  6  Hero-worihip.  Hume  makes  uHe  of  thiM  term.  If 
he  did  not  invent  it.  In  dis.  ussinj,'  polytheism,  he  says.  ••  The  same 
pnnciples  naturally  deify  mortals  superior  in  power,  murage.  ..r  under- 
standmK,  and  produ.-,  ■  ero-worship."  II.  mk.  Xatural  lluton-  of 
Kthgton,  Sect.  iv.  v.  p.  144.  Kciin..  1S54.  Cp.  "The  secnd  opinion  is. 
that  their  gods  were  simply  their  kings  and  heroes,  whom  they  after- 
wards -eified."  /../..  , ,.  ..Is  there  .,ot  .still  in  the  worl  "s  demeanour 
towards  (Ireat  Men  enough  to  make  the  old  practice  of  Ihro-lVorship 
intelligible,  nay  significant  .>  "  Essays,  Goethe's  Works,  III.  ifo.  "  I  oy. 
alty.  iJiscipleship.  all  that  was  ever  meant  hy  //erc-lfors/ii/',  lives 
perennially  in  the  human  bosom."     Essays,  Hos-wetVs  L,/e  of  JoI.hsoh, 

1  10  Universal  History,  etc.  •' Hi-story  is  the  essence  of  innumer- 
able Biographies."  Essays,  0„  Jf,sto,u  II.  231.  Cp.  i\  nwiiraPhy, 
III.  54,  foot;  and  Heroes,  n. 

2  17    well  with  them.     Adaptation  of  Matt.  xvii.  4. 
4  11    Surely  it  seems.    Cp.  infra,  6  I6  n. 

4  33  mere  quackery.  Cp.  "To  tell  fab-.u.  stories  of  that 
kind  does  not  seem  a  natural  proce.^-  in  the  d:l.  ■,.n  -if  .science  No 
man  in  such  a  case  would  have  .^.r  l„wn  to  ,,  -ke  out  something 
which  all  the  while  he  knew  to  be  a  lie ;  no  serious  mai,  would  do  it  " 
L.L.  II. 

5  96  Turner's  Account.  Captain  Samuel  Turner.  He  reached 
Thibet  just  after  the  death  of  one  lama  and  the  installation  of  another 
a  baby  eighteen  months  old.  See  his  Aaount  of  an  F.p  bassv  to  the 
Court  of  the  Teshoo  Lama  in  ThiM,  cap.  viii,  pp.  310-316.  '  I.ond., 
1800.  In  H'  this  reads  'Hamilton's  Travels  into.'  Kvidently  Car- 
iyle  had  in  mind  :  "An  Account  of  the  A'in^^Jom  of  AVA//,  „„,/  of  the 
terntortes  annexed  to   this   dominion   by   the   House   of  Gorkka.     By 

293 


i 


vi 


t  .' 


<f 


B 


f 


Z9\ 


NOTES 


[Lecture  I 


Francis  Ifamilton  {formerly  Buchanan),  Af.D.,  Fclhnv  of  the  Royal 
Societies  of  London  and  Edinburi^h,  the  Society  of  Antiquaries  :  and  of 
the  Asiatic  Society  of  Calcutta.  Illustrated  with  Engravings."  Julin., 
Constable  &  Co.,  1819.  374  pp ,  410.  It  was  reviewed  in  The  A'ew 
Edinburgh  Reruew,  Ap.  1820,  pp.  384-402. 

6  9  Thibet-methods.  "  When  one  of  these  [skooshoks]  is  about 
to  die,  he  calls  around  him  his  disciples,  and  tells  them  where  he  will 
be  reborn,  and  all  the  circumstances  of  the  rebirth.  As  soon  as  he  is 
dead  the  disciples  repair  to  the  place  he  has  indicated  and  search  for  a 
newly  born  child  which  bears  the  sacred  marks,  and  is  for  other  reasons 
the  most  probable  incarnation  of  the  departed  saint.  Having  found 
the  child,  they  leave  him  with  his  mother  until  he  is  four  years  old, 
when  they  return,  bringing  with  them  a  quantity  of  praying-books, 
rosaries,  praying-wheels,  and  other  priestly  articles,  among  which  are 
those  that  belonged  to  the  late  incarnation.  Then  the  child  has  to 
prove  that  he  is  the  new  incarnation  by  recognizing  the  property  that 
was  his  in  his  previous  existence,  and  by  relating  reminiscences  of  his 
past.  If  he  is  successful  in  this,  as  is  nearly  always  the  case,  he  is 
acknowledged  as  the  skooshok,  and  is  carried  off  for  ever  from  his 
home  and  family,  to  be  educated  in  the  sacred  mysteries."  K.  F. 
Knight,  H^here  Three  Empires  Meet,  a  Narrative  of  Jie,,  t  Travel 
in  Kashmir,  Western  Thibet,  etc.,  130.     Lond.,  1893. 

6  6  certain  genealogy.  Carlyle  began  as  a  Radical.  In  1S31  he 
wrote  in  his  journal ;  "  What  were  the  bet  that  King  William  were  the 
last  of  that  profession  in  Britain,  and  Queen  Victoria  never  troubled 
with  the  sceptre  at  all.'"  C.E.L.  II,  97.  In  1838  he  wrote  to  his 
brother  John  that  he  had  seen  " '  her  little  majesty '  coming  in  from 
the  daily  ride.  She  is  decidedly  a  pretty-looking  little  creature  :  health, 
clearness,  graceful  timidity  looking  out  from  her  young  face,  '  frail 
cockle  on  the  black  bottomless  deluges.' "  C.L.L.  I,  144.  These 
opinions  look  strange  i*"  the  light  of  the  Diamond  Jubilee  celebrations  ; 
but  Chartism  was  a  real  danger,  and  Carlyle  was  meditating  or  writing 
his  French  Revolutici. 

6  16  Allegory.  "  Polytheism  seems  at  first  an  inextricable  mass  of 
confusions  and  delusions ;  but  there  was  no  doubt  some  meaning  in  it 
for  the  people.  It  may  be  explained  in  one  of  two  ways.  The  first  is 
that  the  fable  was  only  an  allegory  to  explain  the  various  relations  of 
natural  facts  (of  spiritual  facts  and  material),  and  much  learning  has 
been  expended  on  this  theory."     L.L.  11. 

8  16     fancy  of  Plato's.     See  P/nedo,  109,  r;  and  Republtc,  bk.  vii, 


Lecture  I]  TIIF.    HERO  AS  DIIIA'ITY 


295 


beginning.  The  first  three  editions  read  'Aristotle's'  here  and  'Aris- 
totle •  in  1.  27,  an  evidence  of  haste  in  composition.  It  looks  also  as 
if  Carlyle  had  confused  the  famous  '  den '  and  '  shadows '  with  the 
'  man  dwelling  in  the  depths  of  the  ocean.' 

9  ay  mystery  of  Time.  Cp.  Sartor,  Natural  Supematuralism, 
236  16;  and /A,  231  lo  n. 

9  3y  apparitions.  Cp.  Sartor,  Natural  Supematuralism,  240  30: 
and  ib.,  241  lo  n. 

10  5  Force  which  is  not  we.  Cp.  "  The  Eternal,  not  ourselves, 
that  makes  for  righteousness,"  .M.  Arnold,  Cod  and  the  Bible,  7, 
Lond.,  1S97;  "The  Eternal  Power,  not  ourselves,  that  makes  for 
righteousness,"  ib.,  Literature  and  Dogma,  229,  Lond.,  1897. 

10  H     not  a  leaf.     Cp.  Sartor,  Prospective,  63  ;)2-34  ;  and  infra,  117  1. 
10  17     sold  over  counters.     Cp.  Sartor,  Natural  Supematuralism, 
234  24-:t:). 

10  2ti  stripping-off.  If  Carlyle  had  rememl)ered  his  native  proverb 
about  taking  the  breeks  off  a  Highlandman,  he  would  have  avoided  this 
Irish  bull.  How  could  the  '•  ancient  earnest  soul  "  strip-off  '<  undevout 
wrappages,"  it  was  "  as  yet  unencuml)ered  with  "  .> 

10  31  All  was  Godlike.  "  I  look  up  to  the  starry  sky,  and  an 
everlasting  chain  stretches  thither,  and  over,  and  below;  and  all  is  Life, 
and  Warmth,  and  Light,  and  all  is  Godlike  or  God."  Quintus  Fixlein, 
C.-Trans.,  end  ;  see  Essays,  Jean  Paul  l-riedrick  Kic liter,  I,  28. 

11  1  Jean  Paul.  .See  Carlyle's  two  appreciations,  Essays,  Jean 
Paul  Priedrich  Richter,  I,  5  ;  and  Essays,  Jean  Paul  Priedrich  Pichter 
Again,  II,  162. 

11  la    Sabeans.     .See  55  an  n. 

11  24  window  through  which.  -  Rightly  viewed  no  meanest 
object  is  insignificant  ;  all  objects  are  as  windows,  through  which  the 
philosophic  eye  looks  into  Infinitude  itself."     Sartor,  Prospectne,  64  2. 

12  1  Shekinah  or  Ark.  A  mistake.  The  Shekinah  was  \tot  the 
Ark.  but  the  glory  that  appeared  upon  it. 

12  6  The  true  Shekinah.  Ihe  manifestation  of  God  between  the 
cherubim  of  the  ark;  see  Num.  vii,  89.  A  favorite  phrase  of  Carlyle's 
(cp.  Sartor,  Pure  Reason,  58  ly),  which  he  may  have  got  from  Tristram 
Shandy,  vol.  V,  cap.  i  (orig.  ed.).  I  have  found  the  idea  but  not  the 
phrase  in  Chrysostom;  see  Sartor,  58  IK  n. 

12  »  the  mystery.  Cp.  "One  forenoon,  I  was  standing,  a  very 
young  child,  in  the  outer  dour  and  looking  leftwaul  at  the  stack  of  the 
fuel-wood,  —  when,    all   at    once,   the   internal   vision,   'I   am   a   me' 


[I 


:?: 


-i 


y*i 


296 


NOTES 


[Lecture  I 


I 


l'.' 


1*  ■ 
1  = 


-t 


i,:.i 


(iVA  3»«  «'«  fch),  came  like  a  flash  from  heaven  before  me."    Richter, 
of  himself;  see  Essays,  Jean  Paul  Fritdrich  Richter,  II,  177. 

12  13  but  one  Temple.  An  adaptation  of  i  Cor.  iii,  16,  17.  Cp. 
Ncvalis  Schriften,  II,  126,  Berlin,  1826;  also  Essays,  Goethe's  Works, 
III,  161;  Essays,  Novalis,  II,  118;  Sartor,  Old  Clothes,  217  15;  and 
Heroes,  233  13,  18. 

12  13    Novalis.     See  Carlyle's  account,  Essays,  Novalis,  II,  79. 

13  3     Hero-worship.     Cp.  Essays,  Goethe's  Works,  III,  160. 

13  23    greatest  of  all.    Cp.  Sartor,  Hdotage,  207  19-27. 

14  s  Kon-ning.  This  etymology,  which  Carlyle  was  fond  of,  is  mis- 
taken. Cp.  Sartor,  Organic  Filaments,  226  86  and  n.  From  O.K.  cynn, 
race,  and  ing,  the  patronymic  ending,  meaning  '  a  man  of  (noble)  race.' 
Kluge. 

14  8  representing  gold.  Cp.  Heroes,  233  a;  Essays,  Goethe's 
Works,  III,  164,  top. 

14  24  'account'  for  him.  Cp.  Essays,  Signs  of  the  Times,  II,  154. 
'  Speak  to  any  small  man,'  etc. 

15  11    dead  fuel .  .  .  lightning.    Cp.  infra,  88  39. 

15  98    History  of  the  World.    Cp.  Heroes,  i. 

16  11  stifle  him.  Cp.  Essays,  Voltaire,  II,  36;  and  ib.,  Goethe's 
Works,  III,  162. 

16  18  Persiflage.  Carlyle  dwells  on  this  in  his  account  of  Voltaire. 
See  Essays,  Voltaire,  II,  35,  44. 

16  23  delivering  Calases.  Cp.  Essays,  Voltaire,  II,  49  ;  J.  Mor- 
ley,  Voltaire,  V. 

16  30  Queen  Antoinette.  See  Carlyle,  French  Revolution,  The 
Bastille,  bk.  ii,  cap.  iv,  Maurepas.  "  Is  not  this,  for  example,  our  Patri- 
arch Voltaire,  after  long  years  of  absence,  revisiting  Paris  ?  .  .  .  Her 
majesty  herself  had  some  thought  of  sending  for  him,  but  was  dis- 
suaded. Let  majesty  consider  it,  nevertheless.  The  purport  of  this 
man's  existence  has  been  to  wither  up  and  annihilate  all  whereon 
majesty  and  worship  for  the  present  rests ;  and  it  is  so  that  the  world 
recognizes  him." 

16  31     Douanier.     See  Essays,  Voltaire,  II,  47. 

17  1  tavern-waiters.  See  Essays,  Voltaire,  II,  47.  This  hap- 
pened at  the  tavern  "Golden  Cross  "of  Dijon,  where  Voltaire  rested 
the  first  night  of  his  journey  to  Paris.  He  was  unaware  of  his  wor- 
shippers' devotion. 

17  9     Va  bon  train.     See  Essays,  Voltaire,  II,  47. 

17  3     nucleus  of  a  comet.      See  Essays,  Voltaire,  1 1,  48. 


Lecture  I]  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY 


2y7 


17  4     pluck  a  hair.     See  Essays,  yoUaire,  11,  so.     Cp. 
Vea,l)eg  a  Imir  of  him  for  memory, 
And, flying  mention  it  within  their  wills, 
Bequeathing  it  as  a  rich  legacy. 
Unto  their  issue. 

Julius  Ctesar,  iii,  i. 

17  10  Pontiff  of  Encyclopedism.  In  view  of  the  fpct  that  this 
phrase  has  been  explained  as  "  Reference  to  Johnson'.s  Dictionary  and 
•Johnsonese  '  style."  it  may  l.e  well  to  note  that  it  refers  to  Voltaire  as 
the  chief  exponent  of  the  sceptical  philosophy,  diffused  by  means  of  the 
Encyclopidie. 

19  11  Samund.  "From  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century  comes 
the  earliest  known  copy  of  a  collection,  begun  about  the  year  i  ^40,  of 
old  mythical,  religious,  and  heroic  songs  and  tales.  .  .  .  That  earliest 
copy  of  them  was  a  parchment  book  [Codex  Re^-ius,  Xo.  2.6;  in 
Copenhagen),  which  was  sent  in  ,063  from  Iceland  as  a  present  f^om 
the  Hishop  Brynjulfr  Sveins.son,  of  Skalhalt,  to  King  Frederick  III  of 
Denmark.  The  bishop  had  discovered  it  in  a  farmhouse  in  1C43  This 
work  was  ascribed  to  Sxmund  .Sigfusson,  who  was  priest,  poet,  and  his- 
torian, had  a  share  in  forming  the  ecclesiastical  code  in  Iceland,  and 
died  in  the  year  1135,  a  hundred  years  before  the  collection  was  made. 
t  has  been  known,  therefore,  as  .S.xmund's  IMda,  or  the  Klder,  or  the 
Poetical  Edda."     II.  Mori.ky,  EHf^lisli  IV.iters,  I,  273. 

19  16  Edda.  "Jacob  Grimm  traced  the  word  ""lulda  to  a  root 
'azd.  noble,  with  which  he  associated  the  Middle  High  (lerman'arf 
the  Anglo-Saxon 'ord,' a  point,  and  the  Icelandic  'o<ld.,'  from  which 
he  derived  Edda  as  a  feminine  form,  meap-ng  that  which  stands  at  the 
point  or  head  of  anything.  Arne  Magnusson.  seeing  that  poetry 
had  been  called,  in  poems  of  the  fourteenth  century,  Kddu-list- the 
art  of  Edda- and  its  rules  Eddu-reglur,  suggested  that  the  word 
Edda  was  derived  from  an  old  word,  '  o.Nr,'  meaning  mind  or  poetry  " 
H.  M0RI.EV,  English  IVrUers,  II,  336.  "  Professor  Rhys  has  suggested 
Aideadh,  a  Ccl  ic  name  given  to  old  Irish  tragic  tales  concern  U  with 
'  aitte,'  death."     lb.,  I,  274. 

19  18  Snorro.  "The  Younger  or  Prose  Edda- Snorri's  Fdda- 
was  the  book  to  which  the  name  Edda  was  ti  rst  altach.d,  and  the  author  of 
this  was  .Snorri  Sturieson.  Snorri  Sturieson.  poet  and  historian,  was  born 
m  U78,  rose  to  high  office  in  Iceland,  and  was  murdered  in  i  ^4  r  I  lis 
book  called  'Edda-  was  .an  Ars  Poetic.i,  cntuining  the  old  rules  for 
verse-making  and  poetic  diction ,  but  as  the  diction  included  a  large 


«» 


ii 


298 


JVOTES 


[Lecture  I 


I 


r.  ■ 
«- 

'I. 


I. 


61' 


number  of  allusions  and  phrases  derived  from  the  old  Northern 
mythology,  a  summary  was  also  given  of  the  myths  from  which  they  all 
were  drawn.  First  came  two  sections,  Gylfaginning  (the  Delusion  of 
Gylfi)  and  Bragarce^ur  (liragi's  Tales),  which  gave  larger  and  smaller 
sketches  of  the  old  mythology;  then  came  a  third  section  called 
Skaldskaparmal  (the  Ars  Poetica),  which  described  the  conventional 
circumlocutions  and  the  other  devices  of  the  skalds,  or  Northern  poets ; 
the  fourth  and  last  section  was  called  Ildttatal  (Counting  of  Metres), 
which  was  a  Prosody  ingeniously  set  forth  by  help  of  a  Song  of  Praise 
in  a  hundred  and  two  lines,  contrived  as  examples  of  all  verse-measures 
in  use."  11.  Morley,  English  Writers,  I,  273  f.  See  Vigfusson, 
Sturlunga  Saga,  Prolegomena,  I,  Ixxiii-lxxxi. 

20  8    Jotuns.     See  41  30  n. 

20  23  Spanish  yoyagers.  It  turns  out  that  this  whole  story  is  a 
fabrication.  Pigafetta,  the  companion  of  Magellan,  who  discovered  the 
Ladrones  in  1 521, does  not  mention  the  circumstance;  it  appears  first 
in  Le  Gobien,  Ilistoire  des  Isles  Maria nes,  p.  44,  Paris,  1700,  and  is  a 
modification  of  a  statement  of  Herodotus  (III,  16)  regarding  the 
Egyptians.  See  Tylor,  Researches  into  the  Early  History  of  Mankind, 
234  f.    Lond.,  1870. 

20  33  combing  their  manes.  Literally,  "  And  evened  (smoothed) 
the  mane  for  his  steeds."     Sictn.  Edd.,  j?rymskvi&a,  5. 

21  3  Hymir.  See  Mallet,  Northern  Antiquities,  403 ;  Gylfagin., 
5,  Lond.,  1859.  "When  returning  from  hunting,  the  old  man  came 
into  the  hall,  the  icebergs  sounded,  and  his  beard  froze ;  at  his  glance 
the  doorpost  sprang  apart,  —  it  is  the  shattering  power  of  the  frost." 
Uhlani),  Mythus  von  Thor,  Gesam.  IVerke,  III,  94.  Quoted  from  Sicm. 
Edd.,  Ilymiskvi&a,  29. 

21  6  Thor.  See  Mallet,  AVM^;-«  Antiquities,  \\(i;  Gylfagin.,  21, 
Lond.,  1859;  VjWzxiA,  Mythus  von  Thor,  Grimm,  Tent.  Myth^  I,  viii, 
Donar,  Thunar,  Thorr ;  Corpus  Poeticum  Boreale,  II,  463. 

21  12  blows  .  .  .  red  beard.  The  Old  Norse  "  traditions  every- 
where define  him  more  narrowly  as  red-bearded,  of  course  in  allusion 
to  the  fiery  phenomenon  of  lightning ;  when  the  god  is  angry,  he  blows 
in  his  red  beard,  and  thunder  peals  through  the  clouds."  Grimm,  Teut. 
Myth.,  I,  177. 

21  14    Balder.     See  40  1  n. 

21  20  Wiinsch.  The  idea  that  "  Wunsch  "  was  an  old  German 
deity  is  not  now  held.  "  The  sum-total  of  well-being  and  blessedness, 
the  fulness  of  all  graces,  seems  in  our  ancient  language  to  have  been 


Lecture  I] 


THE   HEKO  AS  DIVINITY 


Z</) 


expressed  by  a  single  word,  whose  meaning  has  since  been  narrowed 
down;  it  was  named  ■wu>is<-/t  (wish),  .  .  .  perfection  in  whatever  Icind, 
what  we  should  call  the  Ideal."  (;rimm.  '/\„t.  Mvth.,  I,  13S.  Ix)nd., 
1882.     Cp.  infra,  87  a». 

21  28  Aegir.  See  S(cm.  liJJ.,  Lokauinta  :  Uhland,  Mytkus  von 
Thor,  /J  Atgir.  Eager.  In  Carlyle's  article  on  Norfolk,  in  IJrewstir's 
Edinburgh  Emychpadia,  this  phenomenon  was  noticed.  "  About  the 
equinoxes  in  particular,  and  especially  at  the  full  moon  of  the  autumnal 
one,  it  is  liable  to  a  species  of  flood,  which,  from  its  impetuosity,  the 
inhabitants  are  accustomed  to  denominate  an  ea-er.  The  tide  flows 
up  the  channel  with  extraordinary  fury,  overwhelming  every  obstacle 
and  frequently  causing  extensive  mischief;  even  the  waterfowls  shun 
it  on  such  occasions."  C.\ri.yi.f.,  M.mtaigne  ami  other  Essays,  177. 
I.ond.,  1S97.  The  regular  tidal  wave  sweeping  up  the  river  is  well 
known  in  Nova  Scotia  on  the  l!ay  of  Fundy  side.  The  local  name  Is 
bore.  Carlyle's  later  etymology,  though  endorsed  by  (Jrimm,  is  now 
given  up. 

23  1  brewing  ale.  The  tale  is  told  in  two  poems  of  the  Klder 
Edda,  Ilymiskvi&a  and  Lokasenna.  of  which  loiulensed  prose  versions 
are  given  in  Mallet,  Northern  Antiquities,  375. 

23  5  ears  of  the  Pot.  literally,  "and  the  ring-formed  lugs 
sounded  at  his  heels."  S,rm.  E,ld.,  I/ymiskriU'a,  34.  Vigfusson  notes 
the  Icelandic  comparison  of  a  threatening  sky  to  a  pot  turned  upside 
down.     .See  Corpus  Poeticiim  Horcate,  I,  514. 

23  10    Creation. 
p.  404. 

23  24    Igdrasil. 
p.  410. 

23  29  Nomas.  The  Icelandic  pi.  of  norti  is  nornir.  Their  names 
are  UrSr,  Ver^andi,  and  Skuld.  .See  Grimm,  Tent.  .Vyth.,  I,  405-417; 
and  Mallet.  Northern  Antiquities,  Prose  Edda,  16,  p.  4t2. 

24  in  infinite  conjugation.  "  Understand  it  well,  the  Thing,  that 
Thing  is  an  Action,  the  product  and  expression  of  exerted  force  :  the 
All  of  Things  is  an  infinite  conjugation  of  the  verb  To  do."  C.\R- 
LYLE,  The  Erench  Revolution,  The  Constitution,  bk.  iii,  cap.  i. 

24  13  Ulfila.  Or  Vulfila,  "wolfling,"  born  311,  made  bishop  341, 
L-ibored  among  the  Goths  until  his  death  at  Constantinople  in  381,  the 
tran.slator  of  the  Bible  into  Gothic. 

24  16  Machine.  Possibly  an  allusion  to  suc'i  works  as  Laplace's 
Mecanique    Celeste,  and  certainly  to  the  Utilitarian  conception  of  the 


.See  Mallet,  Northern  Antiquities,  Prose  Edda,  7, 
See  Mallet,  Northern  Antiquities.  Prose  Edda,  1 5, 


m 


■■'M 

i  I 


'.I ' 

,'i 


IJ 


h; 


i 


'4'. 


300 


l/OTKS 


[Lecture  I 


universe.     (J p.  Kssavi,  Si^'tis  of  tlie  Times,  II,  138  ;  ih.,  Charactttistus, 
111,46. 

25  .10  sympathetic  ink.  A  phra.s(;  of  Chalmers's,  which  struck 
Carlyle.  Christianity  was  "all  written  in  us  already,"  he  said,  "as  in 
symj  alhelic  ink ;  Kii)le  awakens  it  and  you  can  read."  Kei  II,  73. 
Used  also  by  Carlyle,  Sartor,  Pros/^cith-e,  68  ao. 

26  16  Councils  of  Trebisond.  A  characteristic  mannerism  of  Car 
lyle's  is  to  pluralize  proper  names  in  ortler  to  avoid  vagueness  and  to 
attain  picturesque  effect.  Here  Carlyle  has  slipped.  There  was  no 
Council  of  Trebizond  ;  he  may  have  had  in  mind  Nicxa  or  Chalcedon 

27  'J  Heimskringla.  "  Ileimskringla,  the  world's  circle,  being  the 
first  word  of  the  manuscript  that  catches  the  eye,  has  been  quaintly 
used  by  the  northern  antiquaries  to  designate  the  work  itself.  .  .  . 
Snorro  iiimself  .  .  .  calls  his  work  the  Saga  or  Story  of  the  Kings  of 
Norway."     Lainc,  Ifeimskringla,  I,  Prelim.  Dissert.  I.     Lond.,  1844. 

27  2  Odin  .  .  .  Prince.  "  Odin  was  a  great  and  very  far  travelled 
warrior,  who  cimquered  many  kingdoms,  and  so  successful  was  he  that 
in  every  battle  the  victory  was  on  his  side."  Laing,  Ileimskringla, 
I,  217.     Lond.  1S44.     This  is  now  regarded  as  myth. 

27  .1  Asen.  Carlyle's  bracketing  this  with  Asiatics  may  mislead ; 
'  Ass'  in  O.N.  means  '  god,'  pi.  '  .Ksir.'  See  (Irimm,  Tcut.  Myth.,  I,  24  ; 
Mallet,  Northern  Antiquities,  Glossary,  j-Ksir,  p.  546;  Corpus  Poeticiim 
Boreale,  II,  515.  Carlyle  gives  here  the  view  formerly  held  by  Norse 
scholars  ;  he  is  not  solely  responsible. 

27  10  Saxo  Grammaticus.  Danish  historian  and  poet,  probably  a 
native  of  Zealand  who  l)egan  his  great  work  Gesta  Danorum  about 
1 185.  It  was  a  favorite  book  in  the  middle  ages.  From  it  we  get  the 
plot  of  Hamlet. 

27  N  Torfaeus.  An  Iceland  scholar  (d.  1719)  who  was  first  to 
rev_al  the  wealth  of  the  saga  literature  to  the  world. 

27  i-i  Grimm  .  .  .  Wuotan.  "  It  can  scarcely  be  doubted  that  the 
word  's  immediately  derived  from  the  verb  O.W.Vt.watan  wuot,i'i.'S. 
va&a,  <'!&  signifying  meare,  transmeare,  cum  impetu  ferri,  but  not 
identical  with  Latin  vadere."  Grimm,  Teut.  Myth.,  I,  131.  Lond., 
1882.     This  etymology  is  now  given  up. 

28  7  Lope.  "  Krey  Lojje  Felix  de  Vega,  whose  name  has  become 
universally  a  proverb  for  whatever  is  good,"  says  Quevedo,  in  his  Afro- 
bacion  to  Tome  de  Hurguillos  (Obras  Sueltas  de  Lope,  Tom.  XIX. 
p.  xix).  "  It  became  a  common  proverb  to  praise  a  good  thing  by 
calling  it  a  Lope  ;  so  that  jewels,  diamonds,  pictures,  etc.,  were  raised 


II 


Lecture  I] 


THE   HERO  AS  DIVINITY 


301 


into  esteem  by  calling  them  his,"  says  Montalvan  (Obras  Sueltas, 
Tom.  XX,  p.  S3).  Cervantes  intimates  the  same  thing  in  his  tntrtmh, 
"  La  Guarda  Cuidadosa."  TicknoR,  History  of  Sfanish  Littraturt, 
II,  250  n.  31.     N.  v.,  1849. 

28  II  Smith  .  .  .  Essay.  "Consilerations  Concerning  the  First 
Formation  of  Languages  and  the  Different  Genius  of  Original  and 
Compounded  Languages"  is  the  title  of  this  "Essay."  See  The 
Theory  0/  Moral  Sentiments,  etc.,  by  Adam  Smith,  p.  510.     Lond.,  1861. 

29  18    "  Wuotan."     See  27  aa  n. 

29  31  camera-obscura.  "  Let  us  suppose,  for  example,  that  the 
window-shutters  of  a  chamber  being  closed,  so  as  to  exclude  the  light, 
a  hole  be  made  in  them,  in  which  a  convex  lens  is  inserted ;  let  a  screen 
made  of  white  paper  be  then  placed  at  a  distance  from  the  lens,  e(  ual 
to  its  focal  length,  and  at  right  angles  to  its  axis ;  a  small  picture  will 
be  seen  upon  the  screen,  representing  the  view  facing  the  window  to 
which  the  axis  of  the  lens  is  directed ;  this  picture  will  be  delineated  in 
its  proper  colours,  and  all  moving  objects,  such  as  carriages  or  pedes- 
trians, the  smoke  from  the  chimneys,  and  the  clouds  upon  the  sky,  will 
be  seen  moving  upon  it  with  their  proper  motions.  The  picture,  how- 
ever, will  be  inverted  both  vertically  and  laterally ;  .  .  .  this  remarkable 
optical  phenomenon  was  discovered  in  about  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth 
century  by  Haptista-Porta.a  Neapolitan  philosopher."  Lardner,  .^aM</- 
hook  0/  Natural  Philosophy,  §  539.  Lond.,  1861.  Why  "magnifier".' 
The  camera  reduces  in  size. 

29  86  Arundel-marble.  Carlyle  refers  to  the  "  Parian  Chronicle  " 
among  the  marbles  purchased  by  the  Earl  of  .\rundel  in  1624,  and 
presented  by  his  grandson  to  the  University  of  Oxford.  This  is  in  part 
an  inscription  of  the  principal  events  in  the  history  of  Greece  from 
1582  to  264  B.C. 

30  11    colours  .  .  .  cut-glass.    Cp. 

Life,  like  a  dome  of  many<()loured  glass, 
Stains  the  white  radiance  of  eternity. 

Shells Y,  Adonais,  4^3  f. 

30  i22  '  Image  of  his  own  Dream.'  Quoted  from  N'ovalis,  Lehrlinge 
zii  Sais,  cap.  ii,  translated  by  Carlyle,  Essays,  Xovalis,  II,  113  :  "They 
know  not  that  this  so-called  Nature  of  theirs  is  a  Sport  of  the  Mind,  a 
waste  fantasy  of  their  Dream.  Of  a  surety,  it  is  for  them  a  horrible 
Monster,  a  strange  grotesque  .Shadow  of  their  own  Passions."  Cp. 
Sartor,  The  World  Out  0/  Clothes,  48  20. 


i 


•II 


302 


NOTES 


[Lecturr 


1;' 


iV, 


''.6 


31  8  Cettus  of  Venui.  See  Schiller,  Utber  Anmuth  und  WUrde 
Sammt.  IVtrie,  XI,  31  j.     Stuttgart,  1S47. 

31  4  careful  not  to  iniinuate.  "  The  delicat*;  sensibility  of  thi 
Greeks  soon  distinguished  what  the  reason  was  not  yet  capable  ol 
explainin,  vnd,  striving  to  find  expression,  borrowed  images  from  ..it 
imaginatio.i,  since  the  understandinfr  could  not  as  yet  offer  it  ideas.' 
Ih.,  314. 

31  II  Runes.  In  recounting  Odin's  feats,  the  V'nglinga  Saga  says  ; 
"  In  all  such  things  he  was  pre-eminently  wise.  He  taught  all  these 
arts  in  Uunes  and  songs,  which  are  called  incantations."  I^ainc;, 
Heimskringla,  I,  222. 

31  19  incredulity  of  Atahualpa.  "  Among  ail  the  Kuropean  arts, 
what  he  admired  most  was  that  of  reading  and  writing,  and  he  long 
deliberated  with  himself  whether  he  should  consider  it  a>  x  natural  or 
acquired  talent.  In  order  to  determine  this,  he  desired  one  of  the  sol- 
diers who  guarded  him  to  write  the  name  of  God  on  the  nail  of  his 
thumb.  This  he  showed  successively  to  several  Spaniards,  asking  its 
meaning;  and  to  his  amazement  they  all,  without  hesitation,  returned 
the  same  answer."  Robertson,  History  of  America,  fll,  153  f. 
Lond.,  1808. 

31  38  Odin  invented  Poetry.  "  He  spoke  everything  in  rhyme, 
such  as  now  composed,  and  which  we  call  scald-craft.  He  and  his 
temple  gods  were  called  song-smiths,  for  from  them  came  that  art  of 
song  into  the  northern  countries."     LAlNfi,  Ilcimskringla,  I,  221. 

33  4  Wednesbury.  "  In  England  we  find :  IVoodneshoro"  in 
Kent,  near  Sandwich  ;  IVedneshury  and  Weduesfield  in  Staffordshite." 
Grimm,  Tent.  Myth.,  I,  158.  Stallybrass  adds  in  a  note  that  the  num- 
ber might  be  swelled  by  looking  up  in  a  gazetteer  the  names  beginning 
with  Wans-,  Wens-,  etc. 

33  19    way  of  thought.    Cp.  ante,  24  ai-aa. 

33  ihi    camera-obscura.    See  29  ai  n. 

33  29    History  of  the  world.    Cp.  ante,  1  ij. 

35  27    said  above.    Cp.  ante,  1  i»-2a. 

36  7  Choosers  of  the  Slain.  Carlyle  translates  Valkyrs  (val- 
kyrjor).  "  O.N.  valr,  A.S.  wal,  O.H.G.  -wal,  denotes  the  carnage  c' 
the  batdefield,  the  sum  of  the  slain  :  to  take  possession  of  this  val,  to 
gather  it  in,  was  denominated  kiosa,  kiesen,  to  choose."  Grimm, 
Teut.  Myth.,  I,  417.  See  if>.,  417-426  ;  Mallet,  A'orthern  Antiquities, 
Prose  Edda,  427. 

37  a    Snorro  tells  us.     Unidentified. 


Lecture  I]  THE  HERO  AS  DIVINITY 


303 


37  r.  Old  king!.  See  the  .wa  Imrial  of  Scyld  Scefing  in  the  open- 
ing of  mowulf;  and  AV»v  //„„„/•.  Last  HattU,  in  Lotd  Uutterin's 
Letters  f torn  llij^h  Lattltuhs,  xii. 

37  1&    No  Homer  lang.     A  rLference  to 

Vixere  fortet  ante  ARaniemnona 

Multi;  seel  omnes  ilLicrinvibiles 

IJrgentur  igimticiue  longa 

Nocte,  carent  quia  vate  sacro, 

HuK.  r«r»«.  IV,  ly,  25-i8. 

37  34  NorthUnd  Sovereigns.  "Olaf  was  soon  joined  by  all  who 
were  discontented  with  the  change  r.f  dynasty,  an.i  although  his  enemies 
tried  to  ridicule  his  proceedings  l,y  calling  .him  'The  Woodcutter' 
(Tretelgia),  his  colony  grew  into  a  petty  state  of  some  importance." 
.Mai.i.kt.  Northern  Auti,/uities,  86.  See  also  I.aing.  Ikimskrinela, 
46-55- 

38  S8  like  a  Banyan-tree.  See  Sartor,  The  World  in  Clothes, 
34  31  n. 

38  30  Cow  AdumbU.  See  Mallet,  Norther,,  Autujuities,  Prose 
EJiia,  403. 

39  II  Voluspa.  The  first  three  editions  read  //./rww,,/.  a  curious 
error.  The  Volus/a  is  translated  almost  completely  by  Professor  Morley, 
Eni^lish  IVnters,  II,  337-355.     Cp.  1,,/ra,  45  a  n. 

39  30  Gray'8  fragments.  An  interesting  confirmation  of  Carlyle's 
view  will  be  found  in  Dr.  Vhe\p^'sSele.tlons/rom  the  Poetry  and  Prose  of 
Thomas  Gray,  Introd.  Appendix,  Oray's  Knowledge  of  Old  Norse,  by 
Prof.  G.  L.  Kittredge.     Cp.  Corpus  Poeticum  Boreale,  I,  i8r,  259. 

39  30  Thor  '  draws  .  .  .  brows.'  "  It  may  readily  be  imagined 
how  frightened  the  peasant  was  when  he  saw  Thor  knit  his  brows,  and 
grasp  the  handle  of  his  mallet  with  such  force  that  the  joints  of  his 
fingers  became  white  from  the  exertion."  Mai-LKT,  Northern  Antiqui- 
ties, Prose  Edda,  436. 

40  I  Balder.  See  Mallet,  Northern  Antiquities,  Prose  Edda  22 
p.  417- 

40  4  Hermoder.  Icelandic,  //ermo&r.  See  Mallet,  Northern  Antiq- 
uities, Prose  Edda,  49,  p.  446;  and  Sum.  Edd..  l^luspd,  32-34;  ib., 
Baldrs  Draumar. 

40  15  thimble.  Another  curious  slip.  •'  Vanna  also  sent  Frigga 
a  linen  cassock  and  other  gifts,  and  to  Ku.la  a  gold  finger-ring." 
Mali.et,  Northern  Antiquities,  Prose  Edda,  49,  p.  449. 


1-' 


U 


h 


n 


I 

{ 


3(H 


xorKs 


[I.EtTURr.   I 


40  ill  UhUnd  .  .  .  Euay.  /Vr  Mylhin  van  nor  {t^yb),  UhlanJi 
Gtsam.  Werkt,  III.  Stuttgart  (n  <l  )•  lovet  this  Thor.  "He  U  \.\\k 
most  human,  tlit'  most  nutionni,  tliv  most  fiiKUKinK  of  the  Ases,  (lie 
'Ixilovcd  (rieml '  "f  his  worshippers.  .  .  .  Whilst  the  apparition  of  Odin 
always  gives  a  glimpse  of  a  glomiiy,  tcrrililu  background,  the  sagas  of 
Thor,  even  the  more  serious  lays,  have  a  touch  of  harmless  jest.  .  . 
Hut  this  dots  love  no  harm."    /A,  i  ji. 

40  'W  Tbialfi.  See  I'hland,  ,\fythus  von  Thor,  .|,  Cesnin.  ll'frke, 
HI,  35-40.  "  Thialfi,  der  Arliciter,  der  mensthiiche  Heiss  Injim  Anbaii 
der  Krde,  zeigt  sich  in  dieser  Kigeiischaft  am  klarsten  in  der  ebendarum 
vorangestellten  Kaljtl  von  Ilrungnir."     /b.,  36. 

41  4    Bymir'i  Caldron.    Cp.  ante,  23  1  n. 

41  M  Jack  the  Giant-killer.  For  an  excellent  biiiliographical  not« 
on  this  subject,  sue  J.  Jacobs,  Eiii^'lis/i  /iiiry-Tales,  Notes  and  KeUr 
cnets,  237.     Cn.  Corf'tm  Poeticiim  Boreitle,  I,  512. 

41  90  Hynde  Etin.  (irimm  connects  O.N. />/«»«.  »V'/«m«  with  O.K 
toten,  eten,  M.K.  etin,  ttten,eti.,  and  thinks  it  may  Ik;  derived  from  ( ».\ 
tia ;  giant  is  then  equivalent  to  Tolyphagos.  See  J.  Jacobs,  Englis) 
Fairy-  Tales,  Red  Ettin,  and  /(*.,  Xotes  and  Keferenees,  24  5. 

41  *J  Hamlet.  For  a  good  note  on  this  siil)ject,  -see  I.  Gollanc/ 
Hamlet  (Temple  ed.),  xiv  f.  See  also  his  Hamlet  in  Iceland.  Lond. 
1898. 

42  1.'.  Thor's  expeditions.  For  the  complete  tale,  see  Mallet 
Northern  Antii/uities,  Prose  Eddii,  43-4.S,  pp.  435-444. 

42  :ii     Skrymir.    Cp.  ante,  42  i.'>  n. 

43  ao  strain  your  neck.  "  Thor  and  his  companion.-*  proceeded  01 
their  way,  and  towards  noon  descried  a  city  standing  in  the  middle  o 
a  plain.  It  was  so  lofty  that  they  were  obliged  to  bend  their  neck 
quite  back  on  their  shoulders  ere  they  could  .see  to  the  top  of  it. 
Mallet,  Northern  Antiipiities,  Prose  Edda,  46,  p.  439. 

44  24  Mimer-stithy.  (Irimm  connects  this  word  with  L.  memoi 
Mimir  was  the  owner  of  the  well  of  wisdom  under  the  roo's  of  \'ggdra>i 
"  He  is  full  of  wi.sdom,  because  he  drinks  the  waters  ot  the  well  fror 
the  horn  (Ijoll  every  morning."  Carlyle  takes  him  as  the  represent; 
tive  of  Norse  wisdom.  I  can  find  no  connection  with  'stithy  ' ;  Volundi 
the  '  Wayland  Smith  '  of  Kenilworth,  was  the  Norse  Tubal  Cain. 

44  .Ti     American  Backwoods.      A  "da-hing  Kentuckian"  informe 
Harriet  Martineau  that  .\merican  soil  was  so  rich,  that  if  you  planted 
nail  at  night,  it  tame  up  a  spike  next  muriiiiig.     "  Tiie  quality  of  e.\a^ 
geration  has  often  been  remarked  on  as  typical  of  American  characte 


Lv.cii;KK  I] 


TV/A    Ui:i    '  .IS  DUIMTY 


305 


and  eHpftially  of  Americuii  humor  In  Dr.  iVlri's  ln<lntui;l,s  Hand- 
buck  dtr  J-rim<livi<rt,r,  Wf  art-  twid  tlul  the  w<iril  humhui;  i<.  i  ciniiiionly 
U!<ecl  for  the  ixaKKt^raliuiiH  nf  tliu  \(»rth  Anicrit.iiis.  In  !><  sun  ,  nnu 
would  l)c  t>  iiipted  lo  tliink  the  (Ireani  of  tdliimliu.H  half  fulrilln!.  and 
that  KuroiH!  had  fiiund  in  the  Wtist  a  ntart-r  wa)  to  ( (rii-ntalisni,  at  least 
in  dii  tion.  Hut  it  seemn  to  nv  lh.it  a  j,Me.U  deal  nf  what  is  set  (hnvn  a-* 
mere  extravagance  is  mnrelitly  to''  tailed  intensity  and  pii  turev|uene.ss, 
!<ym|>tomH  of  the  Imaginative  fai ,...,  in  full  heallh  and  stronnth.  thou  'i 
producing  as  yet  only  the  new  and  formless  material  in  which  [Mietry 
i»  to  work."     l,ii\VKI.I,,  /■'/s'/.'M' /'//<•;. 1,  S,;  ,1)/,/ X  I i,-t,  Itilioiliutii'ii. 

44  U3  Sagnarok.  tirimm  derives  this  word  erroneously  from 
raginrath,  council,  and  rok,  li'kr.  darkaess  :  N.  /vr/r  ((l.  Kaucli,  Kng. 
reek,  rack),  thus  making  it  e(|uivalent  to  ti.fnuula  deomm,  (lotter- 
dammerung,  Twilight  of  the  (Jods.  See  Mallet,  Xirt/ient  A>iti</iuthi, 
Prose  Edda,  51-53,  pp.  451-  »5S. 

45  u    Voluspa.     The  first  three  e<litions  read  Uavamul;  tp.  39  11  n. 
i5  10    new  Heaven.    See  \\c\.  xxi,  1. 

45  15    phoenix  fire-death.  <  p.. v./; /,>;.  7//i/'//«r;/M  especially  215  i>T. 

45  94  'ting  Olaf.  See  Vi{,'fuss..n,  Stnrliiii^a  Xi-,,,  /',ol,xomi;M, 
I,  Ixxxvii.  The  story  is  found  not  in  //,im>k-i  im^lit,  hut  in  Odd  the 
Monk's  version  of  the  saga  of  <  »laf  Tiynvassoii  (;/.'/  of  ( ,iaf  the  Saint), 
(irimm,  Teut.  Myth.,  f,  cap.  Iv,  177.  -It  li.ippenid  once  when  King 
Olaf  was  sailing  pa.st  the  shores,  and  he  hiins.jf  .sat  heside  the  tiller, 
ihat  a  man  standing  on  a  certain  rock  tailed  out  to  iliein  sailing  past, 
begging  that  the  King  would  not  disdain  to  give  him  a  plan-  in  the  ship. 
When  the  King  heard  this,  he  stiend  th<  ,hip  to  wIumc  the  man  stood  ; 
and  when  that  was  done,  he  got  into  the  sliii)  He  ho.istcd  gr<ally 
(showed  himself  too  insolent  and  free)  and  attacked  the  King's  men 
with  many  jeering  speeches,  showing  great  joy  in  his  f.ice.  lie  was 
goodly  to  look  on,  with  a  red  heard  ;  the  crew  and  he  gaped  at  one 
another;  against  many  of  them  he  llung  about  fre.ikish  words  in  vari- 
ous guise.  When  thi  y  asked  him  if  he  could  tell  anytliing  wortii 
remembering  and  done  long  ago,  he  showeil  that  he  knew  many  tales  ; 
'  For  you  shall  ask  me  nothing,'  he  said,  •  which  I  cannot  e.vplain.' 
This  they  told  to  the  Knig,  saying;  'Tliid  man,  my  lord,  has  many 
memorable  things  to  tell ';  and  they  I)rouglu  him  to  the  King.  When 
asked  by  the  King  what  he  had  tf)  tell,  •  My  lord,'  says  he,  •  this  land 
which  we  are  sailing  past  was  formerly  inhabited  by  giants.  Hut  it  hap- 
pened by  chance,  by  some  hap  which  I  know  not,  that  those  giants  per- 
ished by  some  sudden  death,  so  that  only  two  woineii  were  left  alive. 


:i- 


•  m  ■ 


rff 


3M 


SOTRS 


[I.RCTl'ltK  I 


Then  it  lame  atxtut,  my  lord,  that  men  of  human  kind,  iiprung  from 
the  eautcrn  partn  of  the  world,  In-Ran  to  <lwtll  in  thi»  land;  and  them, 
mjr  lord,  thooe  name  women  greatly  plagued  and  vexed  In  many  wayi«. 
Then  the  men  took  thi*  counst-l,  my  lord,  that  there  againnt  they  should 
ask  this  red  Ixiard  for  help,  and  I  quickly  took  my  hammer  from  my 
lap  and  beat  those  women  to  death.'  When  he  spoke  theite  word*,  he 
leaped  from  the  bow,  across  the  ship  and  flung  himnclf  off  the  poop,  in 
the  sight  of  all.  And  the  King  himself  saw  the  occurrence  clearly, 
how  he  flung  himself  headlong  into  the  sea  and  vanished  from  the  eyes 
of  the  bystanders.  Then  said  King  olaf:  '  liehold  the  effrontery  of 
the  devH,  who  takes  u|}on  himself  to  come  op«;nly  into  our  presence.' " 
4ti  41  NeptuM.  There  are  at  least  Ave  allusions  to  Neptune 
(roseidon)  in  Pindar :  Carlyle  probably  has  in  mind  Ntm.  v,  65-70, 
and  has  confused  the  Isthmian  games  with  the  Xemean  inles.  The 
passage  says  Poseidon  visited  lh«;  games  frequently  (^m^).  not  once  : 
•  stranger  of  noble  grave  aspect '  is  a  quotation  from  Carlyle  himself, 
not  from  Pindar ;  cj).  supra,  46  ;i.  Carlyle  is  here  repeating  what  he 
said  in  his  lectures  on  the  history  of  literature  in  1838.  "  Thiis  I'in- 
dar  mentions  that  IlmrftJwi' (Neptune)  appeared  on  one  occasion  at  the 
Nemean  games.  Here  it  is  conceivable  that  if  some  agetl  individual  o. 
venerable  mien  and  few  words  had.  in  fact,  come  hither,  his  apj'  arance 
would  have  attracted  attention  ;  people  would  have  come  to  gaze  on 
him,  and  conjecture  would  have  been  busy."  /,./,.  21.  Professor 
Greene  in  his  note  on  the  passage  (juotes  from  'a  profane  Greek 
versifier* 

When  Ni'ptunc  .ippeared  at  the  Istlinii.iii  g;ime», 
lie  spoke  nxist  politely  to  numerous  dimes. 
Hut,  not  finding  one  free  from  frivolity. 
He  bowed  and  went  back  to  his  home  in  the  sea. 
'  The  mermaids,'  he  murnuired,  'are  Ix'tter  for  nie.' 


The  same  idea  has  recently  taken  the  shape  of  an  illustrated  advertise- 
ment in  an  American  m.tgazine. 

46  31  Consecration  of  Valour.  In  l.tfe  and  Writini^s  of  HWner, 
Esj..ys.  I,  131,  140,  Carlyle  refers  to  Werner's  play,  J/i/r//«  Luther,  odei 
die  IVeihe  Jtr  Kraft,  which  may  have  suggested  this  phrase. 

47  15  Meistsr.  See  Meister's  Travtls,  cap.  x.  It  is  not  the 
"Teacher"  who  speak  however  bui  'they.'  the  mysterious  Three, 
whom  Wilhelm  met  in^iele  "  the  gate  of  a  wooded  vale."  Passage 
translated,  Essays,    Goethe,  I,  244. 


LccTirRR  II] 


THK  l/SKO  AS  PKOPHKT 


307 


LECTURE  n.     THE    HERO   AS    PROPHET 

49  II  M  ImmMfttrably  dlvtri*.  In  |ihra>iit  like  this.  Carlyte 
antkipfttet  objection*  (uch  a»  Mr.  It.  I).  Traill  o\iw%  in  his  Introduc- 
tion  to  the  Centenary  edition  of  J/troti,  \x. 

49  w  •uch  recaption,  (p.  /»//>,/,  193  a.  216  ai  ;  and  alito  "And 
ihit  was  he  for  wh«im  the  world  foi.nd  no  fitter  ImstincM  than  (|uarrelling 
with  imugglers  and  vintnern,  computing  exrisf  .<lue»  on  tullow.  and  gaug- 
ing alebarrtU !  |r.  Huch  toiU  was  that  mighty  Spirit  sorrowfully 
wasted."    A.^/j'/,  Jhims,  I,  273. 

60  10  Mahomet  .  .  .  Impoitor  " iH  hiit  la!<t  y.ar«.  ambition  was 
the  ruling  paimion  ;  and  a  politician  will  siinpt-c  t  that  he  sccreily  smiled 
(the  victorious  impostor!)  at  the  enthusiasm  .if  his  youth  and  the  cre- 
iiulity  of  his  proselytes."  (Iimhon, /ViZ/Wf- <;«■//■<///,  tap.  I.  .See also 
//',  vol.  IX,  j;j,  n.     I.ond..  1S07. 

60  14  When  Pococke  inquired.  "Ills  auii-m  ([u.v  ah  auctore  no- 
stro  adducuntur,  addiint  alilejusdem  f.irina  multa.  ile  (juibus  iiuid  len- 
sendum  sit  docet  Xobilissimus  et  I  loctissimus  ///z^'  iirotius  in  6.  /V 
veriliUt  rtligUmis  t'liristiiimt  libro,  ubi  et  ipse,  eoru'^i  nonnulla  recen- 
sens,  columlix  ad  Mohammtdis  aurem  a<lvolarc  solit.v  men.init ;  cujus 
cum  nullam  apud  eo»  mentionem  npererim  ac  Clarissimum  Virum  ea  de 
re  consulerem,  se  in  hoc  narraiido,  non  MohiimmeJislarum,  sed  nostro- 
rum  hominum  fide,  nixum  di.\it,  ac  pracipue  Scalij^'tri,  in  cujus  ad 
A/iitii/ium  notis  idem  narratur."  Sfinmut  llistonj  Arahiim  ;  Auiloiy 
I-  hardo  Pjithkio,  pp.  191  f..  ed.  Joseph  White.     Oxon..  1806. 

60  15  atory  of  the  pigeon.  "  I  find  some  very  grra  men  have 
l)een  too  easy  to  swallow  them,  as  particularly  .SVr///i,',» .  ^, otitis,  and 
.SV<)«/fc,  have  that  of  the  J'ixvoiis."  I'ridkai  x,  /'//.•  /me  Xaiutt  of 
finfoslure,  etc.,  50.  I.ond.,  1698.  "  Secuti  tamcn  sunt,  (jji  ei  et  miracula 
attribuerent :  at  qualia.>  N'emiM.',  qux  aut  arte  humana  facile  possunt 
etfecta  reddi,  ut  de  columba  ad  aurem  advolante."  H.  (Ikotm  s,  De 
I'erit.  Reli),'.  Christ.,  lib.  vi,  cap.  v. 

51  I  Age  of  Scepticism.  This  is  Carlyle's  usual  name  for  the 
eighteenth  centuiy.  It  has  this  meaning  in  his  course  of  lectures  on 
literature  in  i8j8. 

51  13  Cagliostro.  fluiseppe  Ralsamo  (i743-r705).  See  Carlyle, 
Count  Cagliostro  (Essay.',  Ill,  330),  for  a  most  interesting  account  of 
this  .swindlnr.     It  appeared  in  Fraser's  Mai;azine,  1S33. 

51  99    Mirabeau.     For  a  full  account,  see  Essays,  Mirabeau,  IV,  85. 


308 


NOTES 


n.ECTURE   II 


I 


«<■ 


5f 


52  9     in  a  vain  show.     See  Ps.  xxxix,  6.     f'p.  iu/ra,  84  9. 
52  29    inspiration  of  the  Almighty.     See  Job  xxxii,  8. 

52  :ti  Mahomet  .  .  .  Inanity.  "  I  gave  them  to  know  that  the 
poor  Arab  had  points  al)out  him  which  it  were  good  for  all  of  them  to 
imitate ;  that  probably  t/iiv  were  more  of  (juacks  than  he  ;  that,  in 
sliort,  it  was  altogether  a  new  kind  of  thing  they  were  hearing  to-day." 
Carlyle's  letter  to  his  mother.     C.L.L.  I,  lyj.     Cp.  infra,  61   1  n. 

53  II  according  to  God's  own  heart.  The  phrase  is  "  after  mine 
own  heart."     See  I  Sam.  xiii,  14,  and  .Vets  xiii,  22. 

53  yj    man  that  walketh.     See  Jer.  x,  23. 

54  :)    '  succession  of  falls.'    ("p. 

tlic  |)itl)nl(l  miscellany,  man. 

Bursts  i)f  great  heart  and  slips  in  sensual  niirc. 

'I'bnnyson,  Tlie  J'rincess,  V. 

54  26    Heaven  with  its  stars.     For  the  same  contrast,  cp. 

The  day  in  his  hotness, 
The  strife  with  the  palm ; 
Tlie  nijjht  in  lier  silence, 
The  stars  in  their  calm. 

M.  Arnold,  A">«/c</<'</«  o«  AV«(«,  Oj///(7«. 

55  i:i  Sale  .  .  .  Ocadh.  "To  keep  up  an  emulation  among  their 
poets,  the  tribes  had,  once  a  year,  a  general  assembly  at  (  »cadh,  a  place 
famous  on  this  account,  and  where  they  kept  a  weekly  mart  or  fair, 
which  was  held  on  our  Sunday.  Tills  annual  meeting  lasted  a  whole 
month,  during  which  time  they  employed  themselves,  not  only  in  trad- 
ing, but  re])eating  their  poetical  compositions,  contending  and  vying 
with  each  (Jther  for  the  prize;  whence  the  place,  it  is  said,  took  its 
name."     S.\i,i:,  /\'i>>\iit,  /'itHhi.  Discourse,  I. 

55  till  Sabeans.  '-This  sect  say  they  took  the  name  of  Sabians 
from  the  above-mentioned  Sabi,  though  it  seems  rather  to  be  derived 
from  .  .  .  Saba  or  the  iiost  of  heaven,  which  they  worship.  .  .  .  The 
idolatry  of  the  Arabs  then,  as  .Sabians,  chiefly  consisted  in  worship- 
ping tile  fixed  stars  and  planets,  and  the  angels  and  their  images, 
\\  ■•■'h  they  honoured  as  inferior  (l<itie'^,  and  whose  intercession  they 
begged,  as  their  mediators  with  flod."  S.\t,i:,  A'oraii,  Prflim.  Dis- 
course, I.     ("p.    Wiicii*^,  Sptiimen  IlistoriiP  Arahum,  144.     Oxon.,  1806. 

56  II  the  Horse.  See  Job  xxxix.  19.  The  tirst  phrase  is  quoted 
accurately,  but  the  seconu  is  taken  from  the  descriptio"  ''  the  leviathan. 


Lecture  II]  THE  HERO  ASi  PROPHET 


309 


Job  xli,  29.     What  misled  Tarlyle  was  his  recollection  of  xxxix,  25, 
"He  saith  among  the  trumpets  I  la,  ha!" 

56  iKt  Black  Stone.  The  sacred  aerolite,  or  fetish  stone,  built  into 
the  southeast  corner  of  the  Caabah  at  Mecca,  just  high  enough  from 
the  ground  to  be  kissed  conveniently  by  the  pilgrims. 

56  34  Diodorus  Siculus.  Noted  by  (Jibbon,  I ),  who  refers  to  vol.  I, 
lib.  ill,  p.  21 1.     Decline  and  Pall,  cap.  1. 

57  11  Keblah.  "Among  the  theists  who  reject  the  use  of  images 
it  has  been  found  necessary  to  restrain  the  wanderings  of  the  fancy,  by 
directing  the  eye  and  thought  towards  a  h\hh,,  or  visible  point  of  the 
horizon.  The  pro|)het  was  at  first  inclined  to  gratify  the  Jews  by  the 
choice  of  Jerusalem;  but  he  soon  returned  to  a  more  natural  partiality; 
and  five  times  every  day  the  eyes  of  the  nations  at  .Astracan,  at  Fez,  at 
Delhi,  are  devoutly  turned  to  the  holy  temple  of  Mecca."  Gihhon, 
Decline  and  Eall,  cap.  1.     Cp.  Sale,  A'oniti,  sum  10,  p.  172  n./ 

59  -Ji)  Sergius.  "  Hesides  this  Jew,  the  /mpos/or  had  also  a  Cliris- 
tian  Monk  for  his  Assistant  ;  And  the  many  particulars  in  his  Alcoran, 
relating  to  the  Christian  A'eli^-ion,  plainly  prove  him  to  have  had  such 
a  helper.  Theophanes,  Zunoras,  Cedreniis,  Au,istasiiis,  and  the  Author 
of  the  Historia  Miseella,  tell  us  of  him,  without  giving  him  any  other 
Xame  than  that  of  a  A'estorian  Monk.  Hut  the  Author  of  the  Dis/iuta- 
//<w  against  a  .1/(i//<//;/*'/.i«,  which  is  epitomi/etl  in  Vincentius  Pellova- 
eensis's  Speculum  Historicuin,  and  from  thence  printed  at  tiie  end 
of  Bibliander's  Latin  Alcoran  [c.  13]  calls  him  Seri^ius  :  .  .  .  The 
.Mahometans  will  have  it,  that  he  first  took  notice  of  Mahomet,  while 
a  Hoy."  Pridkaix,  The  True  Nature  of  Impostitrc.  etc.,  i,(^  f.  Lond., 
1698.  In  his  e.ssay  on  Voltaire  (1.S-9).  Carlyle  alludes  to  this  part  of 
.Mahomet's  career,  as  an  instance  of  how  "little  can  we  prognosticate, 
with  any  certainty,  the  future  nitluLnces  from  the  present  asjjecls  of  an 
individual."     E.ssays,  I,  7. 

61  1  horse-shoe  vein.  Of  Mahomet,  Muir  says  (/.//;■ ,/.]/,?/,,»///,/, 
from  Original  Sources,  ^^.  26.  l.oiid.,  1878):  "  When  much  e.\cited,  the 
vein  between  his  eyebrows  would  mantle,  and  violently  swell  across  his 
ample  forehead."  Scott  uses  this  device  of  the  swelling  vein  in  two 
crises  in  Wandering  Willie's  Tale,  to  sujgest  the  ant;er  <if  Sir  Robert 
Redgauntlet,  and  of  Sir  John,  his  son.  See  Pedgauutlet,  I ftt.  XI. 
Cp.  "Goodman  Mahomet,  on  the  whole  ;  sincere;  a  fighter,  not  indeed 
with  perfect  triumph,  yet  with  honest  battle.  No  mere  sii.er  in  the 
chimney-nook  with  theories  of  battle,  such  as  your  ordinary  'perfect' 
characters  are.     The  '  vein  of  anger  '  between  his  brows,  beaming  black 


310 


A'OTES 


[Lecture  II 


eyes,  brown  complexion,  stout  middle  figure,  fond  of  cheerful  social 
talk  — wish  I  knew  Arabic."     C.L.L.  I,  187  f. 

63  7  bita  of  black  wood.  Cp.  "Verily  the  idols  which  ye  invoke, 
besides  God,  can  never  create  a  single  fly,  although  they  were  all 
assembled  for  that  purpose :  and  if  the  fly  snatch  anything  from  them, 
they  cannot  recover  the  same  from  it."  Sum,  22.  .Sale's  note  is: 
"The  commentators  say,  that  the  Arabs  used  to  anoint  the  images  of 
their  gods  with  some  odoriferous  composition  and  honey,  which  the  flies 
ate,  though  the  doors  of  the  temple  were  carefully  shut,  getting  in  at 
the  windows  or  crevices."     .See  also  72  14,  141  8,  203  ;u. 

63  15  Heraclius.  The  Greek  emperor  who  overcame  Chosroe,  the 
king  of  the  Persians,  622-627,  while  Mahomet  was  waging  war  with  the 
Koreish. 

63  .11  'small  still  voices.'  An  allusion  to  the  'still  small  voice' 
heard  by  Elijah.      I  ivings  xix,  12. 

64  I;-.  transitory  garment.  An  allusion  to  the  EiJgeisl  {Faust, 
sc.  i).  See  Sartor,  World  Out  of  Clotlus,  48,  where  the  phrase  is  ren- 
dered "  the  Ik'iui^  risible  Garment  of  God." 

64  17  '  Islam.'  "The  true  significance  of  the  word  Islam,  .  .  .  Salvi 
{salama,  in  the  first  and  fourth  conjugations)  means  in  the  first  instance 
to  be  tranquil,  at  rest,  to  have  done  one's  duty,  to  have  paid  up,  to  be  at 
perfect  peace,  and,  finally,  to  hand  oneself  over  to  Him  with  whom  peace 
is  made.  The  noun  derived  from  it  means  peace,  greeting,  safety,  sal- 
vation. The  word  thus  implies  absolute  submission  to  God's  will  — 
as  generally  assumed  —  neither  in  the  first  instance,  nor  exclusively,  but 
means,  on  the  contrary,  one  who  strives  after  righteousness  with  his  own 
strength.       Sykd  Amkek  Am,  Critical  Kxamination,  cap.  xi,  p.  159. 

64  28    pretension  of  scanning.     Adaptation  of 

Know  thon  thyself,  presume  not  Hod  to  sc.in, 
The  proper  study  of  mankind  is  man. 

PnlF,  ):ssay  an  ^^aH,  II,  if. 


65  14  take  no  counsel.  Adaptation  of  "  Immediately  I  conferred 
not  with  flesh  and  blood."     Gal.  i,  16. 

65  20     Though  He  slay.     See  Job  xiii,  15. 

65  21  Annihilation  of  Self.  "The  first  preliminary  moral  Act. 
Annihilati(m  of  Self  (Sell>sttodtun!f),  had  been  happily  accomplished  : 
and  my  mind's  eyes  were  now  unsealed,  and  its  hands  ungyved."  Sartor, 
J'he  Everlasting  Yea,  iCx).     "The  true  philosophical  Act  is  annihilation 


Lecture  II]  THE  HERO  AS  PROPHET  i\\ 

of  self  {SclhtmtHux) :  this  is  the  real  beginning  of  all  Thilosophy.  all 
requisites  for  being  a  Disciple  of  Philosophy  point  hither."  Sayim:  of 
Novahs,  translated  by  Carlyle.  Essays,  A\walis,  II,  ,,8 

66  au    inspiration  of  the  Almighty.     See  Job  xxxii,  8 

66  1  Is  not  Belief.  "Can  Miracles  work  Conviction?  Or  is  not 
real  Conviction,  this  highest  function  of  our  soul  and  personality,  the 
only  true  God-announcing  Miracle  ?  "     Essays,  A^ovalis,  II    m r 

66  2  Novalis.  Pseudonym  of  Friedrich  von  Ilardeiiberg  (,77.- 
kSoi).     See  Carlyle's  appreciation.  Essays,  II,  79-134 

66  16  It  is  certain.  -Es  ist  gewiss.' dass  eine  Meinung  sehr  viel 
gewinnt  sobald  ich  weiss,  dass  irgend  jemand  davon  iiberzeugt  ist,  sie 
wahrhaft  annimmt."  Ncalis  Schrifte»,\\,,o^.  Kerl..  ,S.<,.  Quoted 
2\^o  Sartor  Resartus,  194,  28,  and  Essays,  Characteristics,  III.  1  = 

66  19  the  good  Kadijah.  See  Irving.  Mohammed  and  //is  Sue 
t-ssors,  cap.  XV,  end. 

67  «  young  Ali.  Sale  quotes  this  story  as  fact  in  his  Preliminary 
Discourse.  Sect.  ii.  and  .so  does  (libbon,  but  later  authorities  do  not  lend 
.t  their  support.  "The  stories  also  of  the  Prophet  taking  his  stand 
upon  Mount  Safa,  .summoning  his  relatives,  family  by  family  and 
addressing  to  them  the  divine  message;  ...  of  the  miraculous  dinner 
at  which  Mahomet  propounded  his  claim  to  his  relatives.  Ali  alone 
standing  forth  as  his  champion  and  '  Vizier.'  etc..  are  all  apocryphal." 
MuiK,  Z//<r  of  Mahomet,  66  n.  i.  *■      Jv 

68  6  If  the  Sun.  Syed  Ameer  Ali  recounts  this  incident  in  his 
I..fe  and  Teachings  of  Mohammed,  p.  42  (L„nd..  1S73),  and  refers  to 
the  original  sources  in  footnotes. 

68.3  rider's  horse.  "The  heavy  price  set  u...  Mohammed's 
head  had  brought  out  many  horsemen  from  Mecca.  a.,a  they  were  still 
diligently  seeking  for  the  helpless  wanderer.  One.  a  wild  and  fierce 
warrior,  actually  caught  sigiit  of  the  fugitives  and  pursue<l  them.  Again 
the  heart  of  Abu  Bakr  misgave  him  and  he  cried, '  We  are  lost '  •  'He 
not  afraid.' said  the  Prophet,  'God  will  protect  us.'  As  the  Idolater 
overtook  Mohammed,  his  horse  reared  and  fell.  Struck  with  awe  he 
entreated  the  forgiveness  of  the  man  whom  he  was  pursuing,  and  asked 
for  an  attestation  of  his  pardon."  Sykij  Amkkk  ,\i,i,  /if  and  7laeh- 
i/i^s  of  Mohammed,  6$.     Lond..  1873. 

69  14  Hegira.  "  The  '  Hejira.'  or  era  of  the  Ilijrat.  was  instituted 
seventeen  years  later  by  the  second  Caliph.  The  commencement,  how- 
ever, ,s  not  laid  at  the  real  time  of  th.-  departure  ku,n  .Mecca,  which 
happened  on  the  4th  of  Kahi  I.  but  on  the  first  day  of  the  first  lunar 
month  of  the  year -viz.,  Muharram  -  which  day,  in  the  year  when  the 


312 


NOTES 


[Lecture  II 


t 


*f' 


era  was  established,  fell  on  the  isth  of  July."  SVED  Ameer  Ali, 
Life  and  Teachings  of  Mohammed,  67  n.  1. 

70  15  conversion  of  the  Saxons.  Refers  probably  to  Charlemagne's 
forcible  liaptism  of  the  assembled  Saxons  at  Paderborn,  in  777.  Gi;i- 
zoT,  History  of  France,  I,  206.  Lond.,  1882.  See  also  Gibbon,  Decline 
and  Fall,  IV,  cap.  xxxvii,  274.     Paris,  1840. 

72  1  Homoiousion.  "  In  speaking  of  Gibbon's  work  to  me  he  made 
one  remark  which  is  worth  recording.  In  earlier  years  he  had  spoken 
contemptuously  of  the  Athanasian  controversy,  of  the  Christian  world 
torn  in  pieces  over  a  diphthong,  and  he  would  ring  the  changes  in  broad 
Annandale  on  the  llomcousion  and  the  Ilomc/ousion.  He  told  me  now 
that  he  perceived  Christianity  itself  to  have  been  at  stake.  If  the  Arians 
had  won,  it  would  have  dwindled  away  to  a  legend."     C.L.L.  II,  494. 

72  n    ye  rub  them.     Cp.  63  7  n. 

73  l!»  Flight  to  Mecca.  'To,' for 'from,' an  error  never  corrected. 
Cp.  ante,  69  C.    "  No  continuance  possible  at  Mecca  for  him  any  longer." 

73  20  Koran  .  .  .  miracle.  Cp.  "  Will  they  say,  'He  hath  f  ed 
the  A'ordn  '  }  Answer,  liring,  therefore,  ten  chapters  like  unto  it,  fo:ged 
fy  yourselves,  and  call  on  whomsoever  ye  may  to  assist  you,  except  lion, 
if  ye  speak  truth."  Koran,  sura  it.  "Say,  Verily  if  men  and  genii 
were  purposely  assembled,  that  they  might  produce  one  like  it,  although 
the  one  of  them  assisted  the  other."  Ih.,sura  12.  "The  devils  did 
not  descend  with  the  Koran,  as  the  infidels  give  out.  It  is  not  for  their 
purpose,  neither  are  they  able  to  produce  such  a  book."     lb.,  sura  26. 

74  5  'discrepancies  of  national  taste.'  Cp.  "Here  are  strange 
diversities  of  taste ;  '  national  discrepancies '  enough,  had  we  time  to 
investigate  them."  Essays,  Goethe,  I,  236.  In  the  August  number  of 
the  Edinburgh  Review  for  1825,  Jeffrey  "  slated  "  Carlyle's  translation 
of  IVilhelm  Afeister.  His  criticism  was  directed  not  so  much  against 
the  English  version  as  against  the  original.  Such  a  sentence  as  the 
following,  near  the  end  of  the  article,  seems  to  have  rankled.  "We 
hold  out  the  work  therefore  as  a  curious  and  striking  instance  of  that 
diversity  of  national  taste,  which  makes  a  writer  idolized  in  one  part  of 
polished  Europe,  who  could  not  be  tolerated  in  another." 

74  14  unreadable  masses.  Apparently  a  "contamination"  of 
"  With  loads  of  learned  lumber  in  his  head,"  I'oi-K,  Essay  on  Criti- 
cism, 613,  and  "With  all  such  reading  as  was  never  KdA"  Dunciad. 
iv,  250.     Cp.  ib.,  iii,  193  f. 

A  liimtx'rhoiiso  of  bonks  in  pvcry  head 
For  ever  reading,  never  to  be  read  I 


Lecture  II]  THE  IfKRO  AS  PROPHET 


313 


See,  on  the  other  hand.  Stanley  I.ane-I'oole,  The  Sf^teihts  and  Table- 
Talk  of  the  Prophet  Mohammed,  Introduction,  d.  1'.  Scries. 

74  20  shoulder-blades  of  mutton.  "  The  word  of  God  and  of  the 
apostle  was  diligently  recorded  Ijy  his  disciples  on  palm  leaves  and  the 
shoulder  blades  of  mutton  ;  and  the  patc^s.  without  order  or  connection, 
were  cast  into  a  domestic  (best  in  the  i  u-^tody  of  oi..-  of  his  wives  ' 
GlliiioN,  Decline  and  Eall,  cap.  1. 

75  .-^i    standard  of  taste.    Cp.  ante,  74  ,■>  n. 

75  I.-.  Prideaux.  Humphrey  I'ridiau.x  (\(^i,%-iTi\),  Orientalist, 
author  of  polemical  tract  against  the  Deists,  "  The  True  Nature  of 
Imposture  fully  display'd  in  the  life  of  Mahomet,"  etc..  1697  ;  often 
since  reprinted.  See  Diet.  Nat.  lUog.  I'rideaux's  letters  were  printed 
in  the  publications  of  the  Camden  Society.  For  his  criticism  of  the 
Koran,  see   Ihe  True  Nature,  etc.,  53  ('jd  ed.).     I.ond.,  1698. 

77  11  He  returns  forever  ...  Hud.  Sura  11  is  entitled  Hud. 
This  prophet  is  mentioned  in  suras  7  and  ir.  "Unto  every  nation 
//(////  an  ai)ostle  been  sent."     Sura  10. 

78  7  Mahomet  ...  no  miracles.  C]).  "  Signs  are  in  the  power  of 
(;f)i>  alone  ;  and  I  am  //,-  mure  than  a  public  preacher."  Koran,  sura 
29.  "  Unless  ...  an  angel  cor  e  with  him,  to  bear  witness  unto  him,  we 
'Mill  not  believe.  Verily,  thou  art  a  i)reacher  only  ;  and  God  is  the  gov- 
ernor of  all  things."  //-.,  sura  11.  "  The  infidels  say,  Unl-.-ss  a  sign  be 
sent  down  unto  him  from  his  I,<jkii,  w,  wt/l  not  believe.  Thou  art  com- 
missioned to  be  a  preai  her  only, ,/;/,/  not  a  worker  of  miracles."  lb.,  sura  13. 

78  14  appointed  paths.  C'l).  "  And  we  placed  stable  mountains  on 
the  earth,  lest  it  should  move  with  i)m  m  ;  and  we  made  broad  passages 
between  them  for  paths,  that  they  might  be  directed  in  their  journeys." 
Koran,  sura  21. 

78  19  revive  a  dead  earth.  Cp.  '•  It  is  he  who  sendeth  the  winds, 
driving  abroad  the  pregnant  clouds,  as  tlie  foreninners  of  his  mercy  ; 
and  we  send  down  jjiue  water  from  heaven,  that  we  may  thereby  revive 
a  dead  country."     Koran,  sura  25. 

78  20  tall  leafy  palm-trees.  Cp.  "It  is  he  who  .sendeth  down 
water  from  heaven,  and  we  have  thereby  produced  the  springing  buds 
of  all  things,  and  have  thereout  produced  the  ^reen  thing,  from  which 
we  produce  the  grain  growing  in  rows,  and  i)alm-trees  from  whose 
l)ranches  proceed  clusters  of  dates  //,/;/.^/«-  dose  tugetner."  Koran, 
sura  6.     A  similar  phrase  occurs  in  sura  50. 

78  S9  cattle  .  .  .  credit.  Cp.  -  He  hath  iikevwse  created  cat  tie  for 
you;  from   them  ye    have  wherewith   to    keep   yourselves  warm,  and 


x\ 


jj  r  I 


314 


NOTES 


[I.KC-IURK    H 


• 


•f 


i\ 


II 


r'\ 


•* 


^1 


other  advantages;  and  of  them  do  ye  also  eat.  And  they  are  likewise 
a  credit  unto  you,  when  ye  drive  them  home  in  the  nwttiug,  and  when  ye 
lead  them  forth  to  feed  in  the  morning"     Koran,  sura  l6. 

78  96  Ships  also.  Ships  and  cattle  are  mentioned  together  in  the 
Koran,  tor  instance,  in  suras  40,  43.  "  Among  his  signs  a/so  are  the 
ships  running  in  the  sea, like  high  mountains:  if  he  pleaseiii,  he  causeth 
the  wind  to  cease,  and  they  lie  still  on  the  back  of  the  water ;  (verily 
herein  are  signs  unto  every  patient  and  grateful  person)."  Koran, 
sura  42. 

79  a  shaped  you.  Cp.  "  O  men,  if  ye  be  in  doubt  concerning  the 
resurrection,  consider  that  vie/irst  created  you  of  the  dust  of  the  ground ; 
.  .  .  Then  we  brought  you  forth  infants ;  and  afterwards  we  permit  you 
to  attain  your  age  of  full  strength ;  and  one  of  you  dieth  in  his  youth, 
and  another  of  you  is  postponed  to  a  decrepit  age,  so  that  he  forgettcth 
whatever  he  knpw."  Koran,  sura  22.  "  God  hath  created  you,  and  he 
will  hereafter  cause  you  to  die :  and  some  of  you  shall  have  his  life  pro- 
longed to  a  decrepit  age,  so  that  he  shall  forget  whatever  he  knew;  for 
God  is  wise  and  powerful."  lb.,  sura  16.  " //  is  God  who  created 
you  in  weakness,  and  after  weakness  hath  given  you  strength;  and 
after  strength,  he  will  again  reduce  you  to  weakness  and  grey  hairs." 
Ih.,  sura  30. 

79  7  Ye  have  compassion.  Cp.  "  And  of  his  signs,  another  is, 
that  he  hath  created  you,  .  .  .  and  hath  put  love  and  compassion 
between   you."     Koran,   sura    30. 

79  23  mountains  .  .  .  clouds.  Cp.  "  He  hath  created  the  heavens 
without  visible  pillars  to  sustain  them,  and  thrown  on  the  earth  moun- 
tains firmly  rooted,  lest  it  should  move  with  you."  Koran,  sura  31. 
See  also  for  the  same  thought,  suras  16,  78.  "  And  thou  shall  see  the 
mountains,  and  shalt  think  them  firmly  fixed  ;  but  they  shall  pass  away, 
even  as  the  clouds  pass  away."  Ih.,  sura  27.  "And  the  mountains 
shall  pass  away  and  become  as  a  vapour."  Ih.,  sura  78.  "  On  that  day 
men  shall  be  like  moths  scattered  abroad,  and  the  mountains  shall 
become  like  carded  wool  of  various  colours  driven  hy  the  uiind."  lb., 
sura  toi. 

81  16  Hahomei .  .  .  not  a  sensual  man.  Carlyle's  protest  against 
such  statements  as  "  His  two  predominant  Passions  were  Ambition  and 
Lust."  Prid*;aux,  The  True  A'citure  of  Imposture,  loi  (3d  ed.) 
Lond.,  169S. 

82  lit  His  last  words.  "After  a  little  he  prayed  in  a  whisper: 
'  Lord,  grant  me  pardon  ;  and  join  me  to  the  companionship  on  high." 


I  !!!!■>' 


LKCTtTRK  II]  T/IE  IlEKO  AS  PROPHET 


315 


I 


Then  at  intervals:  •  Kternity  in  Paradise ! '  - '  Pardon  ! '  <  Ves;  the 
blessed  companionship  on  high  ! '  He  stretched  himself  gently.  Then 
all  was  still  •'  M,. ,  R.  Lip  of  Mahom.%  cap.  xxxiii.  pp.  joS  f.  I.ond..  ,878. 
82  14  lost  his  Daughter,  /einab.  Muir  records  no  sayings  on  this 
event.  ' 

to!h  \I"  !V^'*'^'-  •''^"^  ''"^'  ^'^'  "-^  ^^''^'-"'  "p-  "vii. 

l.ond.,  i»78 ;  and  Aonut,  154  n.  , ,-  and  »/.,  164  n.  e,/,  h 

82  33  Seld'8  daughter.  -He  then  went  to  the  house  of  Zeid- 
and  .ds  little  daughter  rushed  into  his  arms,  crying  bitterly! 
Mahomet  was  overcome,  and  wept  until  he  sobbed  aloud.  A 
bystander,  thinking  to  check  his  grief,  said  to  him:  'Why  is  this 
0  Prophet  ?  •  .  This,'  he  replied,  'is  but  the  fond  yearning  in  the  heart' 
of  fnend  for  fnend.-  Mi„r,  /,/.  of  Mahcnet,  cap.  xxui,  p.  4,0. 
I^nd.,  1878. 

82  ^    three  drachms.     "If  there  be  any  man,"  said  the  apostle 
rom  the  pulp.t,"  whom  I  have  unjustly  scourged,  I  submit  my  own 

back  to  the  lash  of  humiliation.  .  .  .  Has  any  one  been  despoiled  of 
h.s  goods .»  the  little  that  I  possess  shall  compensate  the  principal  and 
interest  of  the  debt."  _"  Ves."  replied  a  voice  in  the  crowd,  "lam 
entitled  to  three  drachms  of  silver."  Mahomet  heard  the  complaint, 
satisfied  the  demand,  and  thanked  his  creditor  for  accusing  him  in  this 
worid  rather  than  at  the  day  of  judgment.  Gibbon,  Dedint  and  Fall 
cap.  1.  ' 

83  a    Kadijah.    Cp.  ante,  66  19  n. 
83  24    your  harvest.     Unidentified. 

83  26  Hell  will  be  hotter.  Cp.  "They  who  were  left  at  home 
n,  'In-  cxpahtion  of  TaMc,  were  glad  of  their  staying  behind  the  apostle 
of  God,  and  were  unwilling  to  employ  their  sub.stance  and  their  per- 
sons for  the  advancement  of  Goi.'s  true  religion;  and  they  said,  Go 
not  forth  in  the  heat.  Say,  the  fire  of  hell  will  be  hotter'  if  they 
understood  t/iis."     A'oran,  sura  9. 

83  29  weighed-out  to  you.  Cp.  "  We  wil!  appoint  just  balances  for 
the  day  or  resurrection  ;  neither  shall  any  soul  be  injured  at  all  : 
although  the  merit  or  guilt  of  an  action  be  of  the  weight  of  a  grain 
of  mustard-seed  only,  we  will  produce  it  publicly  ;  and  there  will  be 
sufficient  accountants  with  us."     Koran,  sura  21. 

84  a  Assuredly.  See  Koran,  sura  75,  p.  473;  sura  82,  p.  482  • 
sura  83,  p.  483. 

84  t>    '  living  in  a  vain  show.'    Cp.  ante,  52  9  n. 

84  25    revenge  yourself.     "  Neither  slay  the  soul  which  God  has 


I 


n 


Ill 


316 


NOTES 


[Lkctitrf.  II 


(! 


r   ! 


forbidden  you  to  tiny,  unless  for  a  just  canst ;  and  whosoever  shall  lie 
slain  unjustly,  we  have  given  his  heir  power  to  demand  satisfattion ;  but 
let  him  not  exceed  the  bounds  of  modtration  in  f'  .  death  Iht 

mnrderer  in  too  cruel  a  manner,  or  by  reveiigifii^  his  j  Nood  on  at  • 

other  than  the  person  who  killed  him  ;  since  he  is  assisted  iy  this  law." 
Koran,  sura  17,  p.  230. 

84  31  giring  alma.  "  Alms  according  to  the  prescriptions  of  the 
Mohammedan  law  are  to  be  given  of  five  things.  \.  Of  cattle,  that  is 
to  say,  of  camels,  kine,  and  sheep.  2.  Of  money.  3.  Of  com.  4. 
Of  fruits,  viz.,  dates  and  raisins.  And  5.  Of  wares  sold.  Of  each  of 
these  a  certain  portion  is  to  be  given  in  alms,  being  usually  one  part  in 
forty,  or  two  and  a  half  per  cent  of  the  value."  Sai.k,  Prelim.  Dis- 
course, Sect.  iv.  (iibbon  is  the  authority  for  the  "  tenth."  I  do  not 
find  it  in  the  Koran.     See  Decline  and  Fall,  tap.  1. 

86  5  Paradise  .  .  .  Hell  sensiul.  For  Paradise,  see  Koran,  sura 
2,  p.  4,  etc.,  and  especially  sura  47,  p.  411 ;  sura  52,  p.  425  ;  sura  55, 
p.  434  ;  sura  56,  p.  435;  sura  76,  p.  475;  and  also  for  Hell,  ib.,  sura  4, 
p.  67;/«ra  7,  p.  119;  sura  14,  p.  206;  ib.,  p.  20()\  sura  22,  p.  275;  sura 
43,  p.  401  ;  sura  44,  p.  404  ;  siira  47,  p.  41 1  ;  sura  88,  p.  487. 

86  13  highest  joys  .  .  .  spiritual.  "  Oon  promiseth  unto  the  true 
believers,  both  men  and  women,  gardens  through  which  rivers  flow, 
wherein  they  shall  remain  for  ever ;  and  delicious  dwellings  in  the  gar- 
dens of  perpetual  abode  :  but  good  will  from  God  shall  be  their  most 
excellent  reward."     Koran,  sura  9. 

85  16  salutation  .  .  .  Peace.  "  Hut  as  to  those  who  believe,  and 
work  righteousness,  their  Lord  will  direct  them  l)ecause  of  their  faith; 
they  shall  have  rivers  flowing  through  gardens  of  pleasure.  Their 
prayer  therein  shall  be.  Praise  be  unto  thee  O  God  !  and  their  saluta- 
tion therein  shall  be  Peace  !  "  Koran,  sura  10,  p.  166.  Cp.  ib.,  sura  14, 
p.  207  ;  sura  33,  p.  347  ;  sura  56,  p.  43S ;  '/'•-  P-  •137-  "  Peace  is  what  all 
desire,  but  all  do  not  care  for  the  things  that  pertain  unto  true  peace." 
Thomas  a  Kempis,  /mit.,  lib.  iii,  cap.  xxv. 

85  19  all  grudges.  '  And  we  will  remove  all  grudges  from  their 
minds."  A'oran,  sura  7,  p.  119.  "  The  angels  shall  say  unto  them,  Knter 
ye  therein  in  peace  and  security,  and  we  will  remove  all  grudges  from 
their  breasts ;  they  shall  he  as  brethren,  sitting  over  against  one  another 
on  couches."    /b.,  sura  1  5,  p.  212. 

85  31  "We  require"  .  .  .  master.  This  quotation  in  this  form  I 
have  not  been  al>!e  tr>  hunt  down  ;  the  nearest  approach  to  it  is  in 
Meister's   visit  to   the   Educational  Province.     He  observes  that  the 


Lecturr  III] 


THE  HEKO  AS  POET 


317 


dress  of  the  pupils  varies,  apparently  without  reason.  "  Wilheim  in- 
quired the  reason  of  this  seeming  contradiction.  '  It  will  be  explained,' 
said  the  other,  '  when  I  tell  you,  that  l>y  this  means  we  endeavour  to 
find  out  the  children's  several  characters.  With  all  our  ^'eneral  Mrict- 
ness  and  regularity,  we  allow  in  this  point  a  certain  latitude  of  choice.'  " 
MiUttr's  Travels,  xi.  p.  215.  I.ond.,  1868.  The  thought  seems  to 
have  undergone  with  time,  a  process  of  sublimstion  in  the  crucible  of 
Cariyle's  brain.    The  translation  of  Meistcr  lay  sixteen  years  behind  him. 

88  8  Month  Ramadhan.  The  Mohammedan  Lent.  "The  month 
of  Ramadan  shall  ye  Just,  in  which  the  Koran  was  sent  down  from 
heavenr  Koran,  sura  2,  p.  22.  On  account  of  the  Mohammedan  year 
being  the  lunar  year,  this  fast  comes  at  different  sea.sons.  See  Muir, 
Life  of  ATahomet,  201.     I.ond.,  1878. 

87  14  Benthamee  Utility.  This  reference  produc-d  a  mild  scene. 
"  The  onslaught  on  lienthaiiiism  in  '  Hero-Worship,'  which  as  Carlyle 
pronounced  the  word  "beggarlier"  brought  Mill  to  his  feet  with  an 
emphatic  No!"  Oarnkit,  Carlyle,  p.  171.  Great  Writers  Series. 
Cp.  Cariyle's  apology,  infra,  198  11-199  1-6. 

87  34     God  Wish.     Cp.  ante,  21  -M  n. 

88  14  Arabia  first  became  alive.  Carlyle  says  the  same  of  Scot- 
land.    See  infra,  166  3-,'-167  l-ya. 

8829    lightmng  out  Of  Heaven.    C p.  «.//.-,  15  T-as. 


nl 


LECTURK    III.     THE    HERO   AS    I'OET 

90  17  Napoleon  has  words,  (p.  infra,  160  U.  "  Kichter  says  of 
Luther's  words,  '  his  words  are  half-battles,' "  and  n. 

90  19  things  Turenne  says.  I  have  not  been  aliie  to  find  any  of 
his  mots. 

91  :.    as  Addison  complains.     I'nidentified. 

91  30  Vates.  Cp.  "  Xevertheless,  taking  up  the  rhararter  of  Vates 
in  its  widest  sense,  Werner  earnestly  desires  not  only  to  he  a  jHiet  but  a 
prophet."     Essays,  Life  and  Writini^s  of  Werner,  I,  \i\. 

91  3.1  the  open  secret.  The  nearest  approach  to  this  ciuotation  I 
found  in  Wilheim  Meister's  Travels,  xiii,  2t,-j  (I.ond..  i.S(kS):  "While 
Nature  unfolded  the  open  secret  of  her  l)eauty."  It  was  a  favorite 
phrase  of  Cariyle's.  Cp.  infa,  132  2(1.  187  JT  ;  /•.w,,.  .r.  State  of  German 
Literature,  T,  45;  ih.,  Goethe,  I,  23:;  ;  ib.,  Jean  Paidl'ricdiieh  L'ic/iler,  II, 
•97;  it;  Goethe's  Death,  III,  148. 


■'Hi 


I 

I 

i 

! 

ii! 
11 


31S 


NOTES 


[LKintlKK  III 


% 

Iff 


III 


91  99  the  Oirlne  Idea.  "The  whole  material  world,  with  all  it.s 
adaptations  and  ends,  and  in  particular  the  life  of  man  in  this  world  are 
by  no  means,  in  themsulvus  and  in  deed  and  truth,  that  which  thty 
seem  to  be  to  the  uncultivated  and  natural  sense  of  man  ;  but  there  is 
something  hight-r,  which  lies  concealed  behind  all  natural  appearance. 
This  concealed  foundation  of  all  appearance  may,  in  its  (greatest 
univL-rsality,  be  aptly  named  the  Divine  /</,«."  Ficiite,  Tht  Xiiture  oj 
t/ie Siholitr,  124.     lx)nd.,  1845.     fp.  iii/ia,  179  97. 

92  :>  the  Satirist.  Carlyle  himself;  see,  for  the  same  idea  ex 
panded,  Siirtoi;    Xtitural  Sii/<i-rHiituriilisni,  232-234. 

93  I    Coniider  the  lilies.    See  Mait.  vi,  28. 
93  II    Beautiful  is  higher.     Unidentified. 

93  IT  I  have  said  somewhere.  In  his  article  on  Diderot  in  the 
(Quarterly  Ktview  in  «S33.  See  I-lssitys,  III,  320.  "  How  .  .  .  shall  it  at 
length  Ih;  made  manifest  .  .  .  that  the  (Jood  is  not  properly  the  highest, 
but  the  Heautiful ;  that  the  true  Heautiful  (differing  from  the  false,  ax 
Heaven  does  from  Vauxhall)  comprehends  in  it  the  tlood.'" 

03  -.>:  imagination  that  shudders.  Cailylc  (juotes  from  himself. 
"The  feelings,  the  gifts  that  exist  in  the  I'oet,  are  tho.se  that  exist,  with 
more  or  less  development,  in  every  human  soul ;  the  imagination,  whicii 
shudders  at  the  Hell  of  Dante,  is  the  same  faculty,  wt^iker  in  degree, 
whicli  called  tiiat  picture  into  being."     /•Assays,  lUtrns,  I,  285. 

93  L*u    Saxo  Grammaticus.    (p.  </'//<,  27  ion. 

94  .■•  World-Poets.  It  was  C  .ethe  wiio  invented  the  term  "world 
literature,"  which  Carlyle  here  modifies. 

94  in    all  men.    Cp.  </«/.•,  93  -jt  n. 

94  IH  German  Critics.  ". Again  he  talks  too  often  of  'represent 
ing  the  Infinite  in  the  Finite,'  of  expressing  the  unspeakaiile  and  sui  !i 
high  niattrrs.  In  fact  Horn's  style,  though  extremely  readable,  has  om 
great  fauii  ;  it  is,  to  speak  it  in  a  single  word,  an  affected  style."' 
Essiiys,  Stiiti-  0/  Cerman  LiUrature,  I,  31.  "Time  itself,  which  is  tht 
outer  veil  of  Kternity,  invests,  of  its  own  accord,  with  an  authentic,  felt 
'infinitude,' whatsoever  it  has  once  embraced  in  its  mysterious  folds." 
Essays,  Hoswcll's  Life  of  Jolinson,  III,  87. 

94  -jw  delineation  .  .  .  musical.  Cp.  /////-,/,  104  ai-;i2.  "  In  tiit 
thinl  place,  his  poem  was  so  musical  that  it  got  up  to  the  length  of 
singing  it.self,  his  soul  was  in  it;  and  when  we  read  there  is  a  tiiiv 
which  hurries  itself  .ilong.  These  (|ualities,  a  great  heart,  insight,  and 
song,  are  the  •^t.-imp  of  a  genuine  potrm  at  all  times."  (Of  the  Dirm 
Commcdui,    LL.   87.)      Mr.    Swinburne   and    Carlyle   had   not   many 


Lkcturk  HI] 


77/A   ItHKO  AS  POET 


319 


'  world 


points  of  contact.  The  p.-.t  of  /.,,„,  i;;urh  rcprovt.l  tlic  mrc  ..f 
ChfUea  for  inde. xncy  ami  calli'.l  liim  'CoproMomos,'  an  evil  nanu-, 
which  does  not.  howi-ver,  offset  ahufjctlKr  Carlyl.'s  .nrrKfti.  (luscti|). 
tion  of  hN  opponent's  attitud.  ;  l.ut  thty  aj-rto  ..s„ntially  in  their 
definition  of  jwetry.  There  is  mu.  h  to  be  said  for  '  the  old  vul(;ar 
distinction.' 

96  :in  A  Corsican  lieutenant.  (  p.  ••  N  ,  llf,iy  Allian.e.  thoush 
plush  and  gilding  and  Lnealogi.  al  ;.ar.  hment,  !<•  the  utmost  that  the 
time  yields,  lie  hiiiiK  round  it.  ran  Rain  for  itself  a  dominion  in  the 
heart  of  any  man  ;  some  thirty  or  forty  millions  <.f  men's  hearts  !» iiig, 
on  the  other  hand,  subdued  into  loyal  revcreme  l.y  a  Corsican 
Lieutenant  of  Artillery."     Esutys,  Coitlu-'s  Works.  HI.  \U\. 

97  a  High  Duchesses,  (p.  hi/,. ,,219  il-j.-,.  and  /.Vt./im,  /{ur„s.  I, 
v.]  ;  />.,  Gotlht's  nWks,  III,  164;  l.ockhait,  l.ife  ,>f  /{„,„<,  n  -o 
l.ond..  1828. 

98  11  Portrait  .  .  ,  Giotto.  .Vot  to  he  confounded  with  what  is 
generally  known  as  the  Ciotto  portrait  of  Dante,  as  a  young  man,  dis- 
covereil  in  i8.}o,  the  year  these  le.  tures  were  giv.  n.  under  the  whitewash 
on  a  wall  of  the  chapel  of  the  palace  of  the  I'odtsta  at  Florence.  The 
ordinary  portraits  are  taken  from  the  death  mask.  whi.  h  Professor 
.Norton  is  inclined  to  consider  jienuine.  .See  Longfelhiw,  /hint,' 's  Diviiie 
Comedy,  I,  350.     C'arlyle  has  made  a  slip  here. 

99  8    ten  silent  centuries.     Cp.  in/,,,,  100  so. 

99  9  mystiw  unfathomable  song  <  p.  /;//><;,  102  r.  Ouoted  from 
Carlyle's  translation  of  Tiei  k's  opinion  of  Novalis.  ••  I  le.  al.me  among 
the  moderns,  resembles  the  lofty  Dante;  and  sings  us.  like  him.  an 
unfathomable,  mystic  song."     F.ts.ivu  A'.'t;i/is,  11,  13.'. 

100  ;t  graceful  affecting  account.  The  famous  I'/f,,  Xu,^,i :  Car- 
lyle  does  not  err  here,  in  the  way  of  overpraise. 

100  16  Podesti.  From  June  15  to  August  15,  1300.  Dante  was 
one  of  the  st.\  Priors  by  election.  'I'odesta'  was  the  term  applied  to 
another  otTicer  in  the  complicated  system  of  civic  government  at 
Florence. 

101  5  record  .  .  .  Archives.  Dated  March  10,  1302.  With  Dante 
are  included  fourteen  others.  ••  There  is  still  to  be  seen  an  act  of  that 
trnie  in  the  an  hives  of  Florence,  charging  all  magistrates  to  burn  Dante 
alive  when  he  should  be  taken,  such  vehement  hatred  had  they  con- 
ceived against  him."     /,./,.  .S  (. 

101  lu    milder  proposal.     .Sonne  not  found. 
101  17    How  hard. 


■».!, 


m 


3»'-i 


^\ 


f\ 


if 

i  i 


f 


5 '  I 


A'OTES 


[Lkcturk  III 


Tu  provtml  tl  cnnw  rw  di  sale 

l.o  pane  altriil,  e  com' t  diiro  calk) 
I.O  Mendere  el  lalir  per  I'  altriil  shaW. 

l'»r»Jit«,  ivil,  %%  l(. 
Quoted  also,  F.ttnys,  Afirahtau,  IV,  102. 

101  91    Can  d«IU  8c«U.     ThiM  incide.tt  U  mentlonml  in  Haylc,  art. 
%»//,  and    Tetrarch's   Ktrnm   Memorandarum,  lib.   iv,  is  given  as 

authority.  "  Krant  in  eodum  cunvictu  hiittrioneii  ac  nebulones  omnis 
generi»,  ut  mos  est,  quorum  unu»  procaciMimu*  oliiiccrnia  verbi.H  ac  gt-- 
■tibui,  multuni  apud  omnes  loci  «t  gratia:  tenebat.  Quod  moleste  ferre 
Dantem  aunpicatus  Cania,  producto  illo  in  medium,  &  magnis  laudibus 
concelebrato,  versus  in  Dantem  :  Miror,  inquit,  quid  causx  lubtit,  cur 
hie  cum  sit  domens,  nobis  tamcn  omnibus  placere  novit,  &  ab  omni- 
bus diligitur,  quod  tu  qui  sapiens  diceris  non  potes  .>  Ille  autem :  Minimi-, 
inquit,  mirareris,  si  noss"s  quod  morum  paritas  &  ».  nilitudo  animorum 
amicitia-  causa  est." 

102  !J9  Malebolge.  Literally  ••  Kvil  wallets."  Panle  gives  this 
name  to  the  divisions  of  the  eighth  circle,  on  account  of  their  narrow, 
deep  shape.     Here  the  fraudulent  are  punished. 

I.uogo  t  in  inferno,  dctto  Malebolge. 

iH/erno,  xvUi,  i. 

102  33  alti  giui.  Literally  "deep  groan.s"  heard  by  Dante  on  his 
first  entranct  into  'h'-  "  citta  dolente  " ;  not  said  specifically,  of  M,iU- 
Mgt. 

Qulvi  sospiri.piantic'd  aiti  guai 
Kinonavan  piT  1'  aer  senza  stelle. 

Inferno,  iil,  ii  (. 


102  3H 

103  u 
to  Dante, 
astrology. 


unfathomable  song.    C'p.  ante,  99  9  n. 

If  thou  follow.     The  beginning  of  llrunetto  Latini's  speech 
Latini  was   Dante's  schoolmaster  and  addicted  to  judicial 


Se  tu  segui  tua  Stella 
Non  puui  fallire  a  gloriosu  porto. 


iH/trno,  XV,  55. 


Cp.  "  His  old  schoolmaster  tells  him  :  '  If  thou  follow  thy  star,  thou 
canst  not  miss  a  happy  harbour.'  That  was  just  it.  That  star  occa 
sionally  shone  on  him  from  the  blue  eternal  depths;  and  he  felt  he  was 
doing  something  good ;  hut  he  soon  lost  it  again  as  he  fell  hack  into  thi 
trough  of  the  sea,  and  iiad  to  journey  on  as  before."     L.L.  92. 


Lecturk  III] 


TltR   IIEKO  AS  POST 


321 


lOS  •     BUdf  OM  iMB. 


S«  nui  contlnga  che  it  poeni.i  Mrro 

A I  qu»k-  ha  posti.  nuno  e  ciein  «  terra 

Si  chc  m'  li.t  fatti.  ptr  piii  .iiinl  maim, 
Vinci  U  crmlvllX 

I'ariiJiio,  \\\,  i-j 

103  ift    Hie  cUudor  DantM.     Part  of  the  epitaph  Dann-  tomponed 
for  hiniMlf  ;  carvcii  in  iiiicialii  on  his  lomli  .ii  Ka\i.iin.i 
Jur»  miinarchia-,  supcrox,  phli-|{etont,i,  I.kumiuu 
l.iistrnndii  n-cini,  vuluvrunt  f.ita  (|in.iis(|uc; 
S«l  quia  |nrt  ressit  mt'lliirilmi  hospit.i  caittris, 
Auctnrfiii(|iie  Aiium  petiit,  fehiinr  astris 
Hie  claudor  Dantht-s  patrii'*  txtorris  ab  oris, 
Qut-m  genuit  parvi  llurriitii  mat.r  aiiiDrli. 

I!avi.«,  nUtioHtiry,  i.v.,  II,  vu,  .1.  n.itei. 

Hayle  given  as  authority  Poctiantius*,  DtScrifl.  flonnt.,^^.  45,  46,  and 
also  PauluH  Jovius,  Kloi;.,  y. 

103  JO    unfathomable  Song.    C'p.  nnu,  99  u  n. 
103 'J I    Coleridge  remarks,     rnidentifitd. 

104  93  canto  fermo.  "  I'lie  mtU.dy  which  remains  firm  to  its 
original  shape,  while  the  parts  around  it  are  varying  with  tlie  counter- 
point."     (iRuVK,  Diit.  Musi,,  I,  306. 

104  'M    makes  it  musical.    I'p.  iinu,  94  •.>»  i,. 

106  3  sincerest  of  poems.  <  oMiiJarc  however,  Kuskin's  opinion, 
Sis,ime  and  l.ihes,  I'lu  MysUiy  <y  I.ij,- ,'«,/'  tis  Arts,  §  iii. 

106  7  people  of  Verona.  lamtnn.iis  says  "Its  fenmus  de  Flor- 
ence."  La  J>iiine  Comoiu,  /iitttii/iiitti'ii,  I.jj.  I'aris,  iNSj.  kossetti 
translates  Moccaccio's  Memoir:  ••  His  complexion  was  brown  ;  his  hair  and 
l)e.ird  thick,  black  and  crisp  ;  and  ah\ay>.  his  counttiiancu  melancholy 
and  thoughtful.  \VhereI)y  it  happed  one  day  in  \i  ron.i,  the  fame  of 
his  works  being  already  noised  everywhcr.',  and  diiefly  of  that  part  of 
his  Comedy  which  he  enitles  Hell,  and  lie  bring  known  l)y  many  men 
and  women,  he  passing  before  a  door  whereat  several  women  were 
sitting,  one  of  them  in  under  tone,  but  still  well  heard  by  him  and  such 
as  were  with  him,  said  to  the  other  women  :  '  Sec  y^'  him  who  goes 
through  hell,  and  returns  when  he  lists,  and  brings  up  hither  news  of 
those  who  are  down  there  .> '  Wliereto  one  of  them  replied  in  her  sim- 
phcity  :  'Of  a  truth,  thou  must  say  true.  Seest  not  how  he  has  his 
beard  shrivelled  up,  and  his  complexion  brown,  through  the  heat  and 


m 


)  '■ 


1;1 


it 


322 


NOTES 


[Lecture  III 


the  smoke  which  are  there  below  ? '  Which  words  hearing  said  behind 
him,  and  knowing  that  they  came  from  pure  credence  in  the  women,  he 
pleased  and  as  it  were  content  that  they  should  be  in  such  belief,  some 
what  smiling,  passed  on."  W.  M.  Kosski n,  The  Comedy  of  Dante 
AtighieriJ'art  I.  The  I  hi  I,  Trauslatedinto  lUank  Verse.  Biographical 
Memorandum,  xii,  f.     Loud.,  1865. 

105  17    perfect  through  suffering.     See  Ileb.  ii,  10. 

106  9    red  pinnacle.     Literally  "  mosques,"  "  vermilion." 

Ed  io :  Maestro,  gi.'l  lu  sue  meschite 
Li  entro  certo  nella  valle  cerno 
Verniiglie,  come  se  di  foco  uscite 


Fossero. 


In/crtio,  viii,  70-73. 


Dr.  John  Carlyle  notices  them  in  his  translation,  Introduction,  xxxiii. 
N.  v.,  1849. 

106  19    Plutus  .  .  .  collapses. 

Quali  dal  vento  le  Ronfiatc  vele 

CaR^iono  avvolte,  poiche  I'alber  fiacca; 
Tal  cadde  a  terra  Li  fiera  crudele. 

In/erno,  vii,  13-15. 

106  21     Brunetto  Latini.     The  first  three  editions  read  '  Sordello.' 

Ed  io,  quando  "1  suo  braccio  a  me  distese, 
Ficcai  gli  occhi  per  Io  cotto  asiK'tto. 

In/erno,  xv,  26  (. 

Cp.  "  Among  these  he  sees  his  old  schoolmaster  who  taught  him  gram 
mar,  he  winks  at  him  in  the  manner  de.scrilied,  but  he  is  so  burnt  that 
Dante  can  hardly  recognise  him."     /,./.  89. 
106  as    fiery  snow. 

.Sovra  tutto  11  sabbion  d'  un  cader  lento 
Piovean  di  fuoco  dilatate  faide 
Come  di  neve  in  alpe  senza  vento. 

hiferno,  xiv,  28-30. 

Cp.  "It  brings  one  home  to  the  subject;  there  is  much  reality  in  this 
similitude.  .So  his  description  of  the  place  they  were  in.  Flakes  of 
fire  came  down  like  snow,  falling  on  the  skin  of  the  people,  and  burn 
ing  i.iem  black  !"     /./..  89. 

106  35    those   Tombs.     See   fnjerno,  ix,  112-x,  i-iS.    Cp.  "The 
description  is  striking  of  the  sarcophagu.ses  in  which  these  people  are 


LKcnrRK  IIIJ 


THE   I/EA'O  AS  I'OET 


323 


i 


i 
-z 


enclosed,  '  more  or  less  heated,'  ...  the  lids  are  to  I.e  kept  ..pen  till 
the  last  day,  and  are  then  to  be  sealed  down  for  ever."     /../..  91. 

106  28  how  Farinata  rises.  .See  In/crno,  x,  22-51.  especially 
1.  35  f.  "  And  he  dre-  ■  isp  his  head  and  chest,  as  if  he  had  Hell  in 
great  disdain."  V-,.  "  w .,  „,ust  not  omit  Farinata,  the  heautiful  illus 
tration  of  a  char.-  -.tor  mu.  h  £,.,„!,:  in  Dante.  Me  is  confined  in  the 
hlack  dome  whcr.  thr  heretic..,  <,  .ell  ...  He  hears  Dante  speaking 
in  the  Tuscan  dial.  l.  ,.nd  he  ac  osts  him.  Me  is  a  man  of  great 
haughtiness  (gran  disfitto,  .,./„v/,w).  This  spirit  of  defiance  of 
suffering,  so  remarkal.le  in  .llschylus,  occurs  tw..  or  three  times  in 
1  )ante.  Farinata  asks  him,  '  What  news  of  Florence  .> '  For  in  all  his 
long  exile  Dante  himself  thinks  continually  of  Florence,  which  he  loves 
.so  well,  and  he  makes  even  those  in  torment  anxious  after  what  is  doing 
in  Florence."     L.I..  91. 

106  an  how  Cavalcante  falls.  Carlyk's  memory  plays  him  false 
here.  See  fnjhno,  x,  5J-72.  The  significant  lines  are:  "  Forse  cui 
Cuido  vo.stro  el)l,e  a  disdegno,"  1.  6;„  and  "  Come  Dicesti :  egli  elihe.!- 
non  viv'  egli  ancora .'  "  II.  67  f.  In  the  lectures  of  iSjS,  Carlyle  remeni- 
I.ers  the  exact  word.  "Then  Cavalcanti  asks  Dante  why  he  is  there, 
and  not  his  son.  Where  is  he  .>  .\nd  Dante  replies  that  perhaps  hj 
had  disdain  for  Virgil.  //„,/.?  C-avakanti  asks  (/•/./„)  :  '  Does  he  not 
live  then  ?  '  And,  as  1  )ante  pauses  a  little  without  replying,  he  plunges 
down  and  Dante  sees  him  no  more  ! "     /,./,.  91  f. 

107  24    the  eye  seeing.     Unidentified. 

108  2  Francesca  and  her  Lover.  .Ste  Jnfirno,  v,  80-142.  C'p. 
"There  are  many  of  his  greatest  qualities  in  the  celebrated  passage 
about  Francesca,  whom  he  finds  in  the  cir.le  of  Inferno  appropriated 
to  those  who  had  erred  in  love.  I  many  times  s.iy  1  know  nowhere  of 
a  more  striking  passage  ;  if  any  one  would  .select  a  passage  character- 
i^itic  of  a  great  man,  let  him  study  that.  It  is  as  tender  as  the  voice  of 
mothers,  fall  of  the  gei-tlest  pity,  though  there  is  much  stern  tragedy 
in  it.  It  is  very  touching.  In  a  place  without  light,  which  groaned  like 
a  stormy  sea,  he  .sees  two  shadows  which  he  wishes  to  speak  to,  and 
they  come  to  him.  He  compares  them  to  doves  whose  wings  are  open 
and  not  fluttering.  Francesca,  one  of  these,  utters  her  complaint,  which 
does  not  occupy  twenty  lines,  though  it  is  such  an  one  that  a  man  may 
write  a  thousand  lines  about  it  and  not  d„  ill.  It  .ont.iins  beautiful 
touches  of  human  weakness.  .She  feels  that  stern  justice  encircles  her 
all  around.  'Oh,  living  creature.'  she  .says,  'who  hast  1  ..me  so  kindly 
to  visit  us,  if  the  Creator  of  the  World '  (poor  Francesca  !  she  knew 


■  *  i 


I 


5» 


P 


1 1 


-J  if 


324 


NOTES 


[Lecture  III 


that  she  had  sinned  against  His  inexorable  justice)  '  were  our  friend,  we 
would  pray  Him  for  thy  peace  ! '  Love,  which  soon  teaches  itself  to  a 
gentle  heart,  inspired  her  Paolo  (beautiful  womanly  feeling  that). 
'  Love  forbids  that  the  person  loved  sliall  not  love  in  return.'  And  so 
she  loved  Paolo.  'Caina  awaits  him  who  destroyed  our  life,'  she  adds 
with  female  vehemence.  Then  in  three  lines  she  tells  the  story  how 
they  fell  in  love.  '  We  read  one  day  of  Lancelot,  how  love  possessed 
him  :  we  were  alone,  we  regarded  one  another ;  when  we  read  of  that 
laughing  kiss,  he,  trembling,  kissed  me  !  Tiiat  day,'  she  adds,  'we  read 
no  further ! ' 

"  The  whole  is  beautiful,  like  a  clear  piping  voice  heard  in  the 
middle  of  a  whirlwind  :  it  is  so  sweet  and  gentle  and  good." 
L.L.  89  f. 

108  :>  della  bella  persona.  "  Love  .  .  .  took  him  with  the  fair  body 
of  which  I  was  bereft";  Literally:  "Which  was  taken  from  me;  and 
in  a  way  that  continues  to  afiiict  me."  l>r.  Carlyle's  Translation,  p.  61 
and  n.  X.  V.,  1849.  The  reading  of  II  '  ' qiiesta  foiina  '  is  not  found  in 
the  passage ;  it  is  apparently  due  to  Carlyle's  imperfect  recollection  of 
the  Italian. 

108  7  he  will  never  part.  "  Questi,  che  mai  da  me  non  fia  diviso." 
Inferno,  v,  135. 

108  8    alti  guai.     See  102  -2:1  n. 

108  9    aer  bruno.     I  iterally  "  the  brown  air."     Inferno,  ii,  i. 

108  i(i  terrestrial  libel.  Cp.  "  This,  too,  is  an  answer  to  a  criticism 
against  Dante,  and  a  paltry  criticism  it  is.  Some  have  regarded  the 
poem  as  a  kind  of  satire  upon  his  enemies,  on  whom  he  revenged  him 
self  by  putting  them  into  hell.  Now  nothing  is  more  unworthy  of 
Dante  than  such  a  theory.  If  he  had  been  of  such  an  ignoble  nature, 
he  could  never  have  written  the  Divina  Commedia.  It  was  written  in 
the  purest  spirit  of  justice."     L.L.  90  f. 

109  10  A  Dio  spiacenti.  These  three  famous  lines  relating  to  the 
angels  which  were  not  rebellious  and  were  not  for  (Jod,  but  for  them- 
selves, occur  close  together;  see  Inferno,  iii,  63,  51,  46.  Carlylc 
grouped  them  in  1837,  in  his  essay  on  Mirabeau.  "  Satan  himself, 
according  to  Dante,  was  a  prai.seworthy  object,  compared  with  those 
jtiste-milicii  angels  (so  over-numerous  in  times  like  ours)  who  '  wen- 
neither  faithful  nor  rebellious,'  but  were  for  their  little  selves  only ; 
trimmers,  moderates,  plausible  persons,  who,  in  the  Dantean  Hell,  are 
found  doomed  to  this  frightful  penalty,  that  '  they  have  not  the  hope  to 
die  (non  han  speranza  di  morte),'  but  sunk  in  torpid  death-life,  in  muii 


Lecture  III] 


THE   HERO  AS  POET 


325 


and  the  pla.'  ue  of  flies,  they  are  to  doze  and  dree  forever, —  ' hateful  to 
God  and  to  ihe  Enemies  of  God  ' : 

'  Non  ragionam  di  lor,  ma  guarda  e  passa  !  ' " 

Estays,  Mirateau,  iv,  91. 

In  1835,  Carlyle  and  his  wife  were  both  studying  Italian.  Cp.  "  We 
had  a  great  burst  of  bravura  together  over  that  class  of  Damned  Souls 
in  Dante,  A  Dio  spiacenti  ed  a"  nemici  sui,  precisely  'the  respectable 
people'  of  this  present  generation  of  the  world  1  Dante  says,  non 
hanno  speranza  di  morte,  they  have  not  the  hojie  to  die  !  A  grand  old 
Puritan  this  Dante  ;  depth  and  ferocity  without  limit ;  implacable,  com- 
posed ;  as  if  covered  with  winter  and  ice,  and  like  Hecla,  his  interior  is 
molten  fire  !  "    Lett.  553. 

109  13  Non  ragionam.  Cp.  "These  of  whom  he  speaks  were  a 
kind  of  trimmers  ;  men  that  had  not  even  the  merit  to  join  with  the 
devil."  He  adds:  '  A'on  ragionam  di  lor,  ma  guarda  e passa  ."  —  '  Let 
us  say  nothing  of  them,  but  look  and  pass  ! '     L.L.  86. 

109  15    non  han  speranza.    Cp.  '•  That  is  a  fine  thing  which  he 

says  of  those  in  a  .state  of  despair,  '  They  have  not  the  Hope  to  die ' 

'Non  hanno  speranza  di  morte!"  What  an  idea  that  is  in  Dante's 
mind  there  of  death  !  To  most  persons  death  is  the  dreaded  being,  the 
king  of  terrors,  Ljt  to  Dante  to  be  imprisoned  for  ever  in  a  miserable 
complexity,  without  hope  of  release,  is  the  most  terrible  of  things  1 
Indeed,  I  belie-  withstanding  the  horror  of  death,  no  human  crea- 

ture but  would  ,  1  be  the  most  dreadful  doom  not  to  l)e  suffered 

to  die,   though  .  .aid  be  decreed  to  enjoy  all  youth   and  bloom 

immortally  !  For  there  is  a  boundlessness,  an  endless  longing,  in  the 
breast,  which  aspires  to  another  world  than  this."     L.L.  SG. 

109  18    that  Destiny  itself.     Unidentified. 

109  33  I  do  not  agree.  Carlyle  had  stated  this  opinion  before  in 
Ills  lectures  of  1838.  Cp.  "The  'Inferno'  has  liecome  of  late  times, 
mainly  the  favourite  of  the  three  divisions  of  Dante's  great  poem.  It 
has  harmonised  well  with  the  taste  of  the  last  thirty  or  forty  years,  in 
which  Europe  ha-  e°med  to  covet  more  a  violence  of  emotion  and  a 
strength  of  convi  i.-,ion  than  almost  any  other  quality.  It  is  no  doubt 
a  great  thing  ;  but  to  my  mind  the  '  Purgatorio  '  is  excellent  also,  and 
I  question  even  whether  it  is  not  a  better  and  a  greater  thing  on  the 
whole."     Z.Z.  93. 

109  .11  tremolar  dell'  onde.  Again  Carlyle  trusts  his  memory  and 
misquotes.      The  phrase   occurs   in   J'urgatorio,  i,   117:    "  The  dawn 


Hi 


i26 


NOTES 


II.kchkk  III 


conquered  the  morning  hour,  which  fled  before  it,  so  that  afar  off  I 
recognized  the  treml)ling  of  the  sea."  Cp.  "  Very  touching  is  that  gen- 
tle patience,  that  unspeaivable  thankfulness  with  which  the  souls  e.xpia 
their  release  after  thousands  of  years.  Cato  is  keeping  the  gate.  That 
is  a  beautiful  dawn  of  morning.  The  dawn  drove  away  the  darkness 
westward,  with  a  quivering  of  the  sea  on  the  horizon. 


W 


'  Si  the  di  lontano 
Conobbi  al  tiuniolar  duUa  marina.' 


■  ** 

1 


i 


iff 


'( 


He  seems  to  seize  the  word  for  it.  .Anybody  who  has  seen  the  sun  rise 
at  sea  will  recognise  it."  L.L.  94.  The  meaningless  '  al '  for  '  il'  is 
probably  due  to  the  transcriber. 

110  «  Tell  my  Giova  ja.  See  Piiixntorio,  viii,  70-75.  Cp.  "  One 
man  says:  'Tell  my  (uovanna  that  I  think  her  mother  does  not  love 
me  now,'  —  that  she  has  laid  aside  her  weeds  I  "     /,.Z.  94. 

110  n     bent-down  like  corbels. 

CoHK'  j)er  sostentar  solaio  o  tetto 

IVr  nicnstila  fcilvolt.i  una  tigura 

.•^i  veder  guingt-r  le  ginocchia  al  petto, 
La  (jual  fa  del  noii  vurvera  rancura 

Nascere  a  chi  la  vi'de ;  cosi  f;itti 

Vid'  io  color,  quando  posi  ben  cum. 

I'tirgatorio,  x,  130-135. 

110  16  Mountain  shakes.  The  incident  of  the  mountain  shaking 
is  given  in  J'lir^ntorio,  xx,  121-151.  Dante  is  very  anxious  to  know 
the  reason  why,  but  does  not  dare  to  ask.  The  explanation  is  given, 
'6.,  xxi,  58-60. 

111  26    as  I  urged.     Cp.  ««/,-,  7  .i-90. 

112  17    ten  silent  centuries.     Cp.  ,;;//,•,  99  ». 

113  14    yesterday,  to-day.     See  Heb.  xiii,  8. 

113  19  Napoleon  in  St.  Helena.  "  Ulliade  est  ainsi  que  la  Gcm'sc 
et  la  Bible  le  signe  et  le  gage  du  temps.  Homere,  dans  sa  production, 
est  poete,  orateur,  historien,  legislateur,  geographe,  tlieologien,  c'est 
I'encyclopediste  de  son  epoque:  Homere  est  inimitable.  ...  Du  restt-, 
jamais,  je  n'etais  aussi  frappe  de  ses  beautes  que  maintenant :  et  ks 
sensations  qu'il  me  fait  epronver  me  confirment  la  justes.se  de  I'appro- 
bation  universelle."  Napoleon  came  back  to  the  subject  often  :  sc- 
Las  Cases,  Memoirs,  II,   .37  (May  i,  1816),  III,  289  (Sept.  13,  1816), 


Lecture  III] 


THE  HERO   AS  POET 


HI, 

1816) 


31 S  (Sept.  22.  18.6),  irr.  i:,z  (Sept.  25-27,  iS.6),  III, 


J27 


11^  (Oct.  8. 


113  ai    oldest  Hebrew  Prophet.    Cp.  a„u,  56  1-9. 

114  13  uses  of  this  Dante.  I  hu  fir.st  chapter  of  Kmerson's  Repre- 
sentattvf  Ahn  discu.s.ses  '•  Uses  of  (ireat  Men." 

114  a:i    Arabians  at  Grenada,     t]).  „„/,•,  88  iii,  20. 

115  1:1     fills  all  Morniug.     Unidentified. 

116*'    Warwickshire  Squire.     <  p. /;,/;,,,  1.  3,  „. 

116  -jrt    Tree  Igdrasil.     C  p. ,/«/,,  2.'J  ai  n. 

116  yo  Sir  Thomas  Lucy.  .See  Sidney  I.ee,  ./  L,/e  of  W,lUum 
Shiikesptwe,  27  f.     Lond.,  iSyg. 

117  I     not  a  leaf  rotting,     (p.  ,(///.•,  10  -  n. 

117  30  Freemason's  Tavern.  (  ariyle  met  with  a  number  ..f  dis- 
tinguished men,  at  this  place,  on  J,u,e  24,  ,.S,o,  t.,  found  the  London 
I.ihr.Try.     See  ('./,./,.  F,  200. 

118  i(<    It  has  been  said.     Cp.  /-.o./i.r,  liuriis,  [,  rS- 

119  17     Fiat  lux.     Se.On.  i,  3.  •    •  -  :>• 

120  ■>  convex-concave  mirror.  A  kichtcrian  idea  ;  see  SU-!.,„ka^ 
cap,  1.  translated  l.y  (  ariyle,  Essays,  Jean  Paul  J-rudnch  Kuhtc,  A  -am 
11.225.  Cp.  "  Is  this  beside  me  yet  a  Man  .^  Unhappy  ..ne!  V<,ur  little 
life  IS  the  .sigh  of  Nature,  or  only  its  echo  ;  .  .  ,,nve.x mirror  throws  its 
rays  into  that  dust-cloud  of  dead  men's  a>hes,  '^un  on  tlie  llarth  ;  nd 
thus  yon  ch.ud-formed  \va\eiiuj;  pliantusnis  arise."  Cp.  ••  There' they 
are  gathered  together,  blinking  up  to  it  w,ih  :,uch  vision  as  they  have, 
scanning  it  from  afar,  hovering  round  it  this  wav  and  that,  each  cun- 
ningly endenvouring.  by  all  arts,  to  catch  some  r.  Hex  of  it  in  the  little 
mirror  of  Himself;  though  many  times  thi>  mirror  is  so  twi.strd  with 
convexities  and  concavities,  and,  indeed,  so  extremelv  small  in  Mze,  that 
to  expect  any  true  image  whatever  from  it,  is  out'  of  the  <p,eslion." 
hssays,Jc-an  J\iui  FrudrLh  Ru- liter,   I.  6. 

120  i.-i  Goethe  .  .  .  says  of  Shakspeare  This  statement  of  Car- 
lyle's  was  corrected  next  day  in  the  'limes,  by  an  unknown  reporter, 
who  spells  the  lecturer's  name,  ( onsistently,  -Carlisle."  He  mentions 
that  the  remark  was  applauded,  and  does  not  want  Carlvle,  but  15os- 
well,  to  have  the  credit  of  originating  it.  Something  very  like  it  does 
occur  in  RosweU.  Johnson,  in  comi)aring  Richardson  and  Fielding  to 
tlie  latter's  disadvantage,  used  this  exp-ession,  "that  there  was  as  great 
a  difference  between  them  as  between  a  man  who  knew  h<,w  a  watch 
was  made,  and  a  man  who  could  tell  the  hour  by  looking  on  the  dial- 
piate."     Uoswell  thinks  that  "  the  neat  watches  of  Fielding  are  as  well 


I 


il'\ 


i! 


i 


:li. 


■it  : 

r 


328 


NOTES 


[Lecture  III 


constructed  as  the  large  clocks  of  Richardson  and  that  his  dial-plates 
are  brighter."  Boswcll,  sul)  ann.,  1768.  I  have  not  been  able  to  lind 
the  remark  in  Goethe. 

121  Vo  crabbed  old  Schoolmaster.  "  An  old  blind  Schoolmaster 
in  Annan  used  to  ask  with  endless  anxiety  when  a  new  scholar  was 
offered  him,  '  I'liit  are  ye  sure  //t-'j  not  a  Dunce?''  It  is  really  the  one 
thing  needful  in  a  man  ;  for  indeed  (if  we  will  candidly  understand  it) 
all  else  is  presupposed  in  that.  Horace  Walpole  is  no  dunce,  not  a 
fibre  of  him  is  dunci.sh."     E.-Corr.  I,  205. 

121  an    talk  of  faculties.     -See  122  la  n. 

122  IJ  All  that  a  man  does.  Cp.  •'  I  know  that  there  have  been 
distinctions  drawn  between  intellect,  imagination,  fancy,  and  so  on,  and 
doubtless  there  are  conveniences  in  such  division,  but  at  the  same  time 
we  must  keep  this  fact  in  view,  that  the  mind  is  one,  and  consists  not 
of  Liinille'  of  faculties  at  all,  showing  ever  the  same  features  however 
it  exhibits  itself  —  whether  in  painting,  singing,  fighting,  ever  the  same 
jihysiognomy."     /-./.  14S. 

123  17  Shakspeare  .  .  .  greatest  of  Intellects.  Cp.  "  In  a  word, 
if  I  w(!re  bound  to  describe  him,  I  should  be  inclined  to  say  that  his 
intellect  was  by  far  greater  than  that  of  any  other  man  who  has  given  an 
account  of  himself  by  writing  books."     L.L.  148. 

123  ai)  unconscious  intellect.  Cp.  "  And  what  is  still  more  excel- 
lent, I  am  sure  that  Shakspeare  himself  had  no  conception  at  all  of 
any  such  meaning  in  his  poem;  he  had  no  scheme  of  the  kind.  He 
would  just  look  into  the  story,  his  noble  mind,  the  serene  depth  of  it, 
would  looI>  in  on  it  as  it  was  by  nature,  with  a  sort  of  noble  instinct, 
and  in  no  other  way."     L.L.  149. 

12".  ai  Novalis  beautifully  remarks.  •'  When  we  speak  of  thf 
aim  and  .Art  observable  in  Shakspeare's  works,  we  must  not  forget  that 
Art  belongs  to  Nature;  tliat  it  is,  so  to  speak,  self-vic'wing,  self-imitat- 
ing, self-fashioning  Nature.  The  Art  of  a  well-developed  genius  is  far 
different  from  the  Artfulness  of  the  Understanding,  of  the  merely 
reasoning  mind.  .Shakspeare  was  no  calculator,  no  learned  thinker  ; 
he  was  a  niiglity  many-gifted  soul,  whose  feelings  and  works,  like 
products  of  Nature,  bear  the  stamp  of  tiie  same  spirit;  and  in  whiili 
the  last  and  deepest  of  observers  will  still  find  new  harmonies  witli 
the  infinite  structure  of  the  Universe;  concurrences  with  later  ideas, 
affinities  with  the  higher  powers  and  senses  of  man.  They  are  emblem- 
atic, have  many  meanings,  are  simple  and  inexhaustible,  like  products 
of  Nature ;  and  nothing  more  unsuitable  could  be  said  of  them  than 


LEtTURK    III] 


THE  HERO  AS  J'OET 


329 


that  they  are  works  of  Art.  in  the  narrow  n.t-.  hanical  acceptation  of  the 
word."     \..VAI.IS,  lil„llu„st,u,h,  ,|uotecl   l.y  Cariylo,  Essays,  H.    mo. 

''He-  (Shakspere)  "is  strong  .-.s  \atua  is  strong,  who  lifts  the 
land  into  mountain  slopes  without  effort,  and  by  the  same  ruK-  as  she 
floats  a  bubble  in  the  air.  and  likes  as  well  to  do  the  one  as  the  other  " 
hMKRSON.  N,-/^,eseutatr.c  AA„,  SAahs/.-.ite  :  or  Ihf  Poet.  "O  mi-hty 
poet  !  Thy  works  are  not  as  those  of  other  men.  simply  and  merely 
great  works  of  art  ;  but  are  also  like  the  phenomena  of  nature, 
hke  the  sun  and  the  sea,  the  stars  and  the  riowers;  like  frost  and 
snow,  rain  and  dew.  hailstorm  and  thunder,  which  are  to  be  studied 
with  entire  submission  of  our  own  faculties,  and  in  the  iH..rfect  faith  that 
in  them  there  can  be  no  too  nm<  h  or  too  little,  nothing  useless  or  inert 
-  but  that,  the  fartiier  we  press  in  our  discoveries,  the  more  we  shall 
see  proofs  of  ilesiyn  anil  self-supi,ortinj,'  arrangement  where  the  careless 
eye  had  seen  nothing  but  accident."  De  Qi  inckv.  0»  t/u  Knockt,,^-  at 
the  U.i/c-  III  MaJ'tUi.  '"' 

123  L'a    new  harmonies.     See  123  ai  n. 

124  :,  as  the  oak-tree  grows.  <  >.  "  And  thus  when  we  hear  of  so 
much  said  of  the  art  of  any  .i;reat  writer  it  is  not  a,t  at  all.  it  is  properly 
natun:  It  is  not  known  to  the  author  himself,  but  is  the  instinctive 
behest  of  his  mind.  This  all-producing  earth  knows  not  the  symmetry 
of  the  oak  which  springs  from  it.  It  is  all  beautiful,  not  a  branch  is  out 
of  Its  place,  all  is  symmetry  there  ;  but  the  earth  has  no  conception  of 
It,  and  produced  it  solely  by  the  virtue  that  was  in  itself."     L.L.  149  f 

124  lu  Speech  is  great.  Cp.  -Words  are  good,  but  theyare  not 
the  best."  (;„KTI.K,  WUhclm  McisU;-s  A/^r>:uluys/u/',  bk.  vii,  cap.  ix, 
tarlyle's  Translation.  II,  60.     I.ond.,  i.SOS. 

125  3  '  good  hater.'  ••  I  )ear  liathurst  was  a  man  to  my  very  heart's 
content:  he  hated  a  fool,  and  he  hated  a  rogue,  an.l  he  hated  a  Whig- 
he  was  a  very  good  imter."  I'io/.i's  Aii^r.wUs,  Sj ;  ,|uoted,  Hirbeck 
Mill's  Bps-uv/1,  T,  190,  n.  2. 

125  i;i    crackling  of  thorns.     .See  Eccl.  vii,  G. 

125  ai.  Hamlet  in  Wilhelm  Meister.  See  IHi/u'/m  .Ueisfcr's 
Atprenticship,  bk.  iv,  cap.  iii  to  bk.  v,  cap.  xii.  Cp.  -'One  of  the 
finest  things  of  the  kind  ever  produced  is  Coethe's  criticism  on  Hamlet 
•n  his  '  Wilhelm  Meister,'  which  many  among  you  are  aware  of.  I  may 
call  it  the  reproduction  of  Hamlet  in  a  shape  .uKlicssed  to  the  intellect, 
as  Mamlet  is  already  addressed  to  the  imagination."  /../..  1 ,7.  "  Let 
ns  look  into  the  scheme  of  his  works,  the  play  of  Hamlet,  for  instance. 
Ooethe  has  found  out  and  has  really  made  plausible  to  his  readers,  all 


330 


NOTES 


[Lecture  II 


«•':! 


sorts  of  harmonies  in  the  structure  of  his  plays  with  the  nature  o 
things,  and  we  have  realised  in  this  way  all  that  could  be  dumandec 
of  him."    lb.,  149. 

125  98    National  Epic.     "  It  is,  as  it   were,  an   historical  hero! 
poem  in  the  dramatic  form  ...  of  which  the  separate  plays  cunstitu 
the  rhapsodies."     A.  W.  Schleoel,  Lectures  on  Dramatic  I.iteraturt 
419.     Lond.,  1883. 

125  98  Marlborough  .  .  .  aaid.  "  In  a  discussion  with  Hurnet  upoi 
some  historical  point,  he  displayed  so  incorrect  a  conception  of  thi 
subject,  that  the  BLshop  asked  him  the  source  of  his  information.  n( 
replied  that  it  was  from  Shakspeare's  plays  that  he  learnt  all  he  knev 
of  English  history."  Woi.seley,  Life  of  Marlhoroui^h,  1,  H-  Ixand. 
1894.  IvOrd  Wolseley  adds  in  a  footnote  :  "This  anecdote  is  told  Ir 
Dr.  Warner  in  his  '  Remarks  on  the  History  of  Fingal '  on  Dr.  Hurnet': 
authority."  Cp.  L.L.  149;  Essays,  On  History,  II,  230,  where  Carlyli 
refers  to  the  same  fact. 

126  5  battle  of  Agincourt.  A.  W.  Schlegel  commends  this  par 
of  Ihnry  /'specially.     Cp.  125  38  n. 

126  9  ye  good  Yeomen.  To  be  exact,  "  And  you,  good  yeomen 
Whose  limbs,"  etc.  Henry  V,  III,  1,  part  of  the  king's  speech  a 
Harfleur,  not  at  Agincourt. 

127  3  Disjecta  membra.  Carlyle  seems  to  have  in  mind  "  Inveniai 
etiamdisjecti  membra poetje,"  HoR.  Sat.,\,  4,62  ;  but  there  is  adifferen 
meaning  in  Horace.  "The  whole  of  it  is  rich  in  thought  and  imagery 
and  happy  expressions ;  and  of  the  disjecta  membra,  scattered  about,' 
etr.     Posweirs  fohnson,  sub  ann.,  1737,  of  Irene. 

127  y  We  are  such  stuff.  Reference  to  the  statue  by  Kent  ii 
Westminster  Abbey.  The  "  scroll "  contains  the  famous  lines  fron 
The  Tempest,  IV,  i,  so  often  quoted  by  Carlyle. 

127  38  little  about  his  Patriotism.  Carlyle  must  have  forgotten 
for  the  time,  John  of  Gaunt's  dying  speech  in  Richard  II. 

129  6    prolix  absurdity.    Cp.  ante,  74  9-16. 

129  13  Sir  Thomas  Lucy.  See  116 ,19  n.,"  sending  to  the  Treadmill." 
a  humorous  modernization  of  whatever  was  ihe  Elizabethan  punishmeiii 
for  poaching. 


Lecti'hk  IVJ 


THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST 


331 


LECTURE    IV.     THE    HERO   AS    PRIEST 

132  8(1    open  secret.     See  91  ati  n. 

133  so  live  .  .  .  fruit  of  hit  leading.  Mixed  metaphor;  cp.  "un- 
ravel  the  kernol,"  ante,  26  St*. 

134  15  wild  Saint  Dominies.  An  example  of  Carlyle's  habit  of 
making  proper  nouns  plural,  to  give  pitturusqueiiess  to  his  style.  The 
reference  is  to  Domingo  de  (luzman,  the  founder  of  the  famous  order  of 
preaching  friars,  •  1  )omini  canes,'  as  they  called  themselves.  Thebaid 
Eremites.     Set   Ki:igs:  y,  'Jhc  Hi-nnits. 

135  16  Progress  of  the  Species.  '•  What,  for  example,  is  all  this 
that  we  hear,  iox  the  last  generation  or  two.  about  the  Improvement  of 
the  Age.  the  Spirit  of  the  Age.  Destruction  of  Prejudice,  Progress  of 
the  Species,  and  the  March  of  Intellect,  but  an  unhealthy  state  of  self- 
sentience,  self  survey,  the  precursor  and  prognostic  of  still  worse 
health."  Essays,  Cluintcti-ristusAW,  22  i.  On  June  i,  iSj;,  Carlyle 
mentions  in  a  letter  to  Emerson  "a  set  of  Essays  on  Progress  of  the 
Species  and  such  like  by  a  man  whom  I  grieved  to  see  confusing  him- 
self with  that.  I'rogress  of  the  species  is  a  thing  I  can  get  no  good  of 
at  all."     I'.Corr.  I,  125. 

136  T  in  the  ocean.  Xo^  so  much  a  quotation  as  Carlyle's  conden- 
Nation  of  /n/,>ii,>,  xxxiv,  106-1  j6. 

137  U4  Schweidnitz  Fort.  Captured  by  General  Loudon.  Sept.  30. 
17O1.  "In  another  place,  the  Soo  Russian  Crenadiers  came  unexpectedly 
upon  a  chasm  or  jjridgele'^s  interstice  Ix-'tween  two  ramparts  ;  and  had 
to'lialt  suddenly,  —till.  (s:iys  n.mour  again,  with  still  less  certainty) 
their  Ofiicers  insisting  with  the  rearward  part,  'Forward,  forward!' 
tiiouKh  of  men  were  timil.led  in  to  make  a  roadway  !  This  was  the 
story  current;  grea  y  exaj-gerated,  I  have  no  doulit."  Carlyi.E,  //is- 
tory  of /yiedrich  //  of  /'russia,  VII,  394.  N.  V.,  1898  (bk.  xx,  cap.  vii). 
(  p.  infra,  168  6. 

138  13  Arab  turban.  A  curious  'arm.'  Could  Carlyle  have 
written  '  tulwar' .' 

138  26  cannot  away  with.  "  Bring  no  more  vain  oblations ; 
incense  is  an  abomination  unto  me;  the  new  moons  and  sab!)aths,  the 
calling  of  assemblies  1  cannot  away  with  ;  it  is  iniquity,  even  the  solemn 
meeting."     isa.  i,  13. 

138  38  done  under  the  sun.  "  I  have  seen  all  the  works  that  are 
done  under  the  sun;  and,  behold,  all  is  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit." 
tccl.  i,  14.    The  phrase  occurs  five  times  in  this  same  book. 


m 


3)2 


NOTES 


[I.K  IIKK    IV 


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?»1 


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l; 


•'%■■ 


139  a?    Canopui.    Caabah.     Si  c  mil,;  1 1  n,  and  60  -iw  f. 

140  14  dimly  to  doubt.  ••  Doubt  "  is  laru  a  Sailtic  ism,  n|iiival>  nt 
to  "suspect." 

140  at  You  do  not  believe.  Iiannot  find  v^lic- DrtowhomColtridgi 
lays  tliis.  It  occurs  a^ain  in  liritf  form  in  (Jarlylc's  /.//;•  c/.S/, 7 ////;,•,  p, 
47  (People's  ed.).  n.  d.,  and  may  have  l)een  said  of  .Sterling;  himself. 

141  M    timber  and  bees-wax.    See  ,/«/,.  72  i.i-i... 
141  w    TetzePs  Pardons,     .^ee  /////-,/,  161  •,>«  n. 

143  7  Hogstraten.  Jacobus  lloogstraien.a  Domiiiitan  nmnk,  whu 
wished  to  convince  I.uther  of  his  errors  by  tiie  short  argument  of  the 
stake;  satirized  in  the  EpistoliP  Ohsiuroriim  I'nonim.     Mi,li,lit,  31  n. 

143  s  Eck.  Johann  I'ck  (I4S()-|  543),  I'rofessor  of  Theulojjy  at 
Ingolstadt,  Master  of  tiie  Apostolical  Chamber  at  Rome  and  licenser 
of  books  ;  attacked  I.uther  on  the  subject  of  indulgences  ;  and  went 
to  Rome  to  procure  his  condemnation  ;  and  was  one  of  his  opponents 
at  the  Diet  of  W Ornis. 

143  1:1  Bellarmine.  Robert  I'.ellarmine  (isij-ifiir)  died  Arch- 
bi.shop  of  Capua,  a  famous  Catholic  theologian  and  controversialist, 
noted  for  his  learning,  clear  method,  and  moderation. 

143  91     believe  that.     See  140  ai  n. 

14f  ;.  Serpent-queller.  An  allusion  to  the  myth  of  Apollo  as 
the  slayer  of  the  Python  ;  or  possibly  in  view  of  the  next  line,  to  Spen 
ser's  Red-cross  Knight  and  his  conquest  of  terror,  h'aerie  (hietiir,  bk.  i. 
cant.  i. 

146  21  Luther's  birthplace.  "In  these  circumstances  Martin 
Luther  was  born.  His  parents  were  of  the  poorest  people.  Ills  fath<i 
was  a  poor  miner  of  Moerha  or  Moer,  near  I'.isi  nac  h,  in  Ipper  Saxony, 
where  I.uther  was  born  on  .N'ovember  loth,  i  1.S3."     /,./,.  135. 

147  n  another  Birth-hour.  Carlyle's  references  to  Jesus  are  uni 
fornily  reverent.     Cp.  Sitrtor,  203,  307. 

147  la  Age  of  Miracles  past.  A  geneml  reference  to  Hume  on 
miracles. 

'47  IH  He  had  to  beg.  "  His  father,  who  seems  to  have  been  w 
remarkable  man,  contrived  to  send  him  to  a  school,  where  he  struggled 
on  in  his  studies  for  a  long  time.  It  appears  that  he  went  with  otii.  r 
of  the  boys,  as  was  their  custom,  through  the  various  villages  in  tin 
intervals  of  study,  singing  ballads,  and  getting  in  this  way  a  few  copper> 
thrown  to  him,  till  at  last  the  widow  of  a  rich  burgher,  hearing  of  hi- 
aljility,  .issisted  him  forward,  and  gut  him  placed  at  tlic  University, 
where  he  soon  distinguished  himself."     L.L.  xzd. 


Lecturk  IV] 


THE   HKRC   AS  PKIhST 


333 


148  I  thunder-hammer.  Thor  miaiis  •  thuiulcr.'  fp. ,/«/,, 21  mi 
148  I  death  of  his  friend.  ••  lli^  fathi  r  wislud  him  t,,  |,e  a  lawy.i. 
and  hi-  was  at  lirM  •.tudyinj.  for  ihat,  Imi  affc  rwards.  iipun  .s.-einj,'  a 
companion  struck  Midtltidy  dead  l.y  lu>  tatln  rV  :>idr.  I.utlur.  naturally 
a  .serious,  mtlantliolyniind.d  man,  \va>  s..  slunk  to  ih.'  heart  at  sutini,' 
Ixfore  his  eyes  a  duar  friiiid  ut  omu  hurrinl  away  into  l-.tcriiity  and 
inliniludc,  that  tiic  l.iw  and  thcj  |.ioinoti,,n>  it  ..||,  red  lilin  sank  into  a 

poor,  miserahlf  dream  in  comparison  to  th.    un.it   irdiiyl..! liim, 

and  hel)ecame  a  numk  tliat  lie  niijdit  occupy  him-.  It  uh..)ly  with  piaver 
and  rehnion."     /../..  \n\. 

148  rJT  a  pioua  monk.  •■  !(.•  iMcamr.  .,,  h.  t.lU  u-,  -a  strict  ami 
painful  monk,' and  this  lifu  cciainiiol  many  yeai-,  n..i.iytcn  years." 
/,./..  i.'fi.     "  l).i/u  mus/  er  die  wmt  hsi,,  ;  <„,  alle  fremlxle  M^-dancken 

I  vnd  da.sz  eis  allcin  horete  ;  viid  dn-  vmlih^r  w.ir.n  ^  nicht   icli    l»in 
auch  fin  sokher  frommer  Munch  jjt-wesen     in  die  tin  Iti/fheii  J.iie  ] 
(lott  vert;el)  niirs."     Ci<i/o,/tii,i  Af<iii.u'i,i.  M.  p,,.     j  i.inkfort,  i;;!. 

149  7  he  wa.S  doomed.  ••  He  was  very  mi,ei.d.!c  in  that  hfe,  ima^- 
ininn  himself  doomed  to  cveri;i>tiiij;  perchli..n.  and  hi  couhl  not  see 
how  prayer,  saying  of  masses,  coidd  save  iiini  or  ^ct  him  to  Ikavtn" 
/../..  ij6. 

149  17  an  old  Latin  Bible.  ••  At  last  one  of  his  !ii..ther  monks,  a 
pious,  good  man,  told  him,  what  was  ipiile  mw  to  hnn  at  tile  lini",  tiiat 
the  real  secret  of  the  thiiii;  lay  in  n  pi  ntaiue  ami  faith  in  lesiis  (  lirist. 
This  was  the  first  insight  he  ever  got  iiuo  it,  thai  it  was  not  pray«  r  nor 
masses  at  all  that  couhl  savi  him,  Imt  failini;  (h>wn  in  -pirii  as  Siriptnre 
says  at  the  foot  of  the  ('ro-.>!  At  llii^  tun.  ,  too,  h,  f,,un,l  ;i  |;il,le,  an 
old  Vulgate  Dihle,  in  the  (onvent  lil.rary,  whi.  h  he  uail.  .md  in  this 
way  he  got  peace  of  mind  at  last,  hiit  he  s' iiiis  to  h.ive  iiiirodn,  nl  no 
project  of  reform  at  the  time."  /../..  ij(,f.  ••  Mml,  astonishment  has 
sometimes  heen  expressed  at  l.ntlur's  -disi  o\cry  '  of  the  I'.iMu  at  tiio 
C."onvcnt  Library  of  Krfurt.  'Hie  real  e.vplanatioii  of  his  previous  igno- 
rance of  its  contents  is  that  l.ulher  entered  the  (  )r(Ur  a  Masitr  of  Alts 
who  had  nt^ver studied  in  a  theological  K.u  iilty."'  \<  XsiihM  i  ,  Cnnvru- 
tii-s  of  /un-o/'c  in  the  Mi,/,//,-  ,-/;■,•?,  1 1,  pi.  ii.  -o\.  ( ixford.  i,So5.  On  the 
other  hand,  Luther  himself  said  that  th.  I'.ihlc  was  ,i  hook  laiely  found 
in  the  hands  of  the  monks,  who  kiiuw  .St.  'liicinas  1..  ttei  than  St.  I'aul. 
A/i,helft,  i8,  n.,  and  i/>..  d,  n.  i.  See  D'Auliigne,  //is/,i)v  of  tin-  h'cfornui- 
tton,  l)k.  ii,  caps,  v,  vi. 

160  4  Priedrich,  the  Wise.  There  is  a  portrait  of  Frederick  in  the 
cheap  English  translation  of  Luther's  Lift'  by  Kustlin. 


% 


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3i4 


XOTES 


[Lkctiirk  IV 


160  n  Profeaior  In  .  .  .  Wittenberg.  •  He  continued  to  grow  in 
eittecm  with  tveryl.o.lj.  rhe  IKnor  of  Saxony,  hearing  of  hi«  gnat 
talents  and  harmony,  lirought  him  to  the  lniverj.ity  h.-  hail  ju.it  founded, 
and  made  him  one  of  the  professors  tlxie."     /../..  1.7. 

160  II  he  first  aaw  Rome.  ••  His  convent  afterwards  sent  him  to 
Rome,  for  he  remained  an  Augustinian  monk,  to  manage  some  affairs 
of  the  convent  :  tliis  was  in  the  time  of  I'opc  Julius  II.  lie  was 
deeply  sho<  ked  at  all  he  saw  there,  liut  was  not  in  the  least  aware  then 
of  the  work  he  was  in  a  few  years  to  do."     /./,.  127. 

160  Hi  what  we  know.  Carlyle's  moderation  is  non  worthy. 
What  l.uther  found  was  the  Italy  of  the  Horgias.  .See  D'AuliiKue. 
Ilistnty  of  tin-  A'lj.iHhitii'ii,  l)k.  ii,  tap.  vi. 

161  l!»  sorrowfulest  of  theories.  f'ompareCatlyle's  generous  indig- 
nation at  a  similar  interpnt.itiim  of  Xante's  conduct,  (p. ,////,,  108  u 
"Again,  turning  in  the  ..th.r  direction,  he  criticises  Luther's  Reforma- 
tion, and  repeats  that  old  and  inileed  cpiite  fooli>h  story  of  the  .\ugus 
tine  monks  li.iving  a  merely  lommercial  grudge  against  the  Dominican." 
/•.■>.>, MM,   7'/l7iV  V  Sut~,  ,y  01  (Urmiiu  /.i ft  ratine;  II,  .((I. 

ir.l  •,>«  The  Monk  Tetzel.  "Hut  at  last  Tet/el,  the  (elel.rated 
Dominican,  i  ,im«'  int..  Sa.\..ny  to  sell  indulgences,  lie  wis  sent  by 
I'ope  l,e<>  X,  who  wanted  money  for  some  purpose,  .some  say  to  l.uy 
jewels  for  a  niece,  and  he  sold  them  there  he.side  l.uther.  I.uthei  soon 
found  it  out  in  the  confessional,  as  he  heard  fri  ijuently  from  tho.se  who 
came  to  confess,  that  they  had  no  need  of  repentance  for  this  or  that 
.sin,  since  they  h.id  bought  indulgences  for  them  !  This  set  Luther  to 
preach  a  sermon  .igainst  the  sale  of  indulgtii.  .s  at  all,  in  which  he 
asserted  that  the  Church  ha.s  only  ])<>wer  to  remit  the  penalties  itself 
imposes  on  sin,  hut  not  to  pardon  sin,  and  that  no  man  has  any  author 
ity  to  do  th.-it.  let/el  responded  to  this,  .uid  at  last  l.uther  saw  him 
.self  obliged  to  look  deeper  into  the  matter,  and  to  publish  Ids 
ninety-five  propositions  as  to  indulgemes,  denying  the  foundation  of 
the  whole  matter  altogether,  and  challen^inj;  Tet/el  to  prove  it  to  him 
either  in  reason  or  Scri])ture.  This  occc-ioned  a  great  ferment  in  (ier 
many,  already  in  an  unsettled  state  of  opinion,  and  produced  several 
missions  from  the  I'ope."  /../..  ij;  f.  l.uther  is  himself  the  authority 
for  this  statement ;  see  MuheU-t,  So,  182. 

152  24  Huss.  The  Hohenuan  reformer  and  martyr;  born  about 
1369,  burnt  at  the  stake.  July  (>,  1,(15.  ^^^^  also  154  !:>  n.  Jerome. 
The  martyr  of  Prague,  convert  of  Wyrliife  and  friend  of  IIuss,  hrrn 
between  1360- 1 370,  burnt  at  the  stake,  May  30,  1416. 


I.rrriTM  IV] 


yy/A  //AA'o  ,ts  rNJi  ST 


.VJS 


162  '£<  CoBsUnce  Council.  This  hdLiM.-  mfeting  (i4i4-i4i.S(  wax 
f.ir  Ihc  purpo-f  of  pnltiny  .111  end  to  tin.-  iirenul.ililicx  in  the  t-ltUitui  of 
ilu'  rii|H',  and  til  pri'M'iit  liif  <lortrii)f>  <\{  l|ii>'.  Imm  ..preatlJn^, 

163  «    words  of  truth.     Sic  Art>  xwi,  .'5 

153  \*  at  the  Elater-Gate.  In  II  '.  (  ail}l.  w.i<.  rmt  a>Ltirdt(  as  to 
tilt!  placf.  "Finally,  lainn  ixi  i>niniiiiiii  .itiil  l>)  tlif  l'<)|>c,  he  pul)li>  ly 
buriieil  the  extoniiminiiation  in  ilu  prtMnn;  of  Iih  frion<U,  and  rxiilid 
thtrehy  a  dwp  murmur  of  a'«i'ii.i>lHil  cxpittanty  aiming  tlif  l>t;li.pliU  r>, 
l)iit  n>>iliinj»  moie  then,  thougli  tlnyiiudd  nni  jj,  |p  fi-i  jinj;  that  tlit; 
ttiitli  must  lie  with  him."     I.  I    i.».S. 

153  :ii    Mahomet  said.     Sll'  72  1 1  n. 

154  I.'.  Diet  of  Worms.  -In  tiif  uar  \\:\  .  .  he  surnndirtd 
himNttf  to  the  Dit't  of  Wdini*.  whun-  the  l.in|Hri'i  li.id  rtsnh.d  to  havu 
hitn  tried,  although  he  rtnuniliert  il  liuw  Ilu-.^  h:i<l  l.i.ii  liilr,i\id  Ixfore, 
•ind  his  -afe-ionduv  t  vioLiltd.  It  w.is  In  tin-  ey>  s  uf  .ill  ,1  d.iim;^,  j;rf.il, 
ti.irfid  I  iitfrpri>e,  hut  not  fe.irfiil  Im  l.uilui,  wIxim'  lite  was  n.it  t"  sink 
into  a  downy  sleep,  while  he  heard  llw  .u'rt.it  i.ill  u\  .1  f.n  otl„  r  lif'-  upon 
iiini,  so  he  determined  to  go.  'riii.,  w,i»  on  tin  i;th  of  .\piii.  i;.m. 
(  h.irli-s  V,  the  l.niperoi.  and  th.  -i\  l.ieiiors  were  >ittiii«  there,  and 
there  was  he,  a  poor  man,  son  of  .1  p.oi  niiiier,  with  noihinii  Imt  (Jod's 
iriith  for  hi.s  support."     /.  /..  ij.S  f. 

154  y.i  as  many  Devils.  "  lli>  frieiuU  nu  1  him  at  t!ie  gate  and  t.ld 
him  not  to  enter  the  1  ity.  as  tlic  ihin^ei  was  .;iiat;  hut  he  told  thmi 
(lelil)erately  'that,  upon  the  whole,  he  wonlil  uo  in,  though  there  Wite 
as  many  devils  in  \\orms  as  hoii-etiles." "  /,./..  i;^.  (^(uotcd  alsfi, 
A... ,;)■,,  /.i.t'i.r's  /'v./Zw,  II    2.\2. 

155  1  Whosoever  denieth.  See  Matt.  \,  ^3.  "Hi;  aeeordingly 
appeared,  and  went  thiougli  an  exaniinati^p  on  matters  of  religion, 
Willi  h  was  wound  up  iiy  the  (piestion,  •  \\  oidd  lie  rr(  .mt  iii>  opinions.-' 

"  The  answer  was  to  he  given  on  the  morrow  ;  he  nie<lit.tted  it  all  the 
night.  Next  morning,  as  he  p.is-ed  through  liie  sini  ts,  the  piople 
were  all  on  their  hoiisetop>,  <alliii^  on  him  not  to  deny  the  truth,  and 
saying,  'Whoso  denieth  Me  before  men,  liim  will  I  deny  before  My 
K.ither.'  And  there  weie  (ther  voices  of  th.it  sort  whiih  spoke  to  his 
heart,   hut   he    passed   on    without   a   word."      A  /..    1  .;i). 

155  \h  His  writings.  ••  In  the  (Oumil  he  sjioke  in  reply  for  two 
hours,  and  was  admiiud  hy  everyhoily  for  his  modest  siiu  erity.  '  As  to 
the  retractation,  he  first  wished  to  have  explained  to  him  what  was 
vMoiig  in  the  opinions.'  They  told  him  •  tiiat  liiey  had  nullmig  to  do 
VMtli  seholastie  theology,  the  question  was,  Would  he  recant.''      To 


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336 


NOTES 


[Lecture  IV 


this  he  answered,  'that  his  book  was  duidtd  into  two  portions,  part  of 
it  was  his  own,  part  was  Scripture.  In  the  former  it  was  possible  lliat 
there  was  much  error,  which,  if  proved,  he  was  not  only  willing,  but 
eager  to  retract;  but  as  to  the  other  part,  he  could  not  retract  it.  It 
was  neither  .safe  nor  prudent  to  do  anything  against  Conscience ;  let  me,' 
he  said,  'be  convicted  of  error  from  the  liiblt,  or  let  the  thing  stand 
as  written.  Here  I  take  my  stand  ;  it  is  neither  safe  nor  prudent  to  do 
anything  against  Conscience.  Cod  Ut;  .ny  lielj).  Amen  ! '  This  speech 
will  be  for  ever  memorable ;  it  was  as  brave  a  sjieech  as  was  ever  uttered 
by  man.  It  was  the  beginning  of  things  not  fully  developed  even  yet, 
but  kindled  then  first  into  a  flame,  which  shall  never  be  extinguished.  It 
was  the  assertion  of  the  right  of  consulting  one's  own  conscience,  which 
every  new  founder  of  a  civilisation  must  now  take  along  with  him,  which 
has  entered  largely  into  all  the  activity  men  have  had  since  !  "  L.L.  \  29  f. 
Quoted  also,  Essays,  Luther's  Psalm,  II.  243.     See  also  if>.,  n. 

157  14  No  Popery.  When  Carlyle  was  giving  these  lectures,  the 
Anglo-Catholic  Revival,  or  O.xford  Movement,  was  almost  at  its  height. 
The  next  year  (the  year  the  lectures  were  published),  Ntvvman  issued 
his  famous  Tnjct  XC.  In  1S42,  he  left  the  Anglican  communion. 
While  Herccs  remained  in  manuscript.  Carlyle  wrote  to  Kmerson  (Dec. 
9,  1840)  :  "  To  fly  in  the  teeth  of  Knglish  I'useyism,  and  risk  such 
shrill  welcome  as  I  am  pretty  sure  of,  is  questionable;  yet  at  bottom 
why  not.'"     E.-Corr.  I,  338. 

158  2fi  man  that  has  stirred-up.  For  example,  the  men  that  made 
the  French  Revolution.  Carlyle  notes  also  how  Knox  dominates  the 
Puritan  movement  in  Scotland  ;  see  infra,  173  !i. 

159  I  a  preach  without  a  cassock.  "  l.uthur  thus  writes  to  George 
Duchholzer,  an  ecclesiastic  of  Uerlin,  who  had  asked  his  opinion 
respecting  the  changes  recently  introduced  into  ISrandenburg.  'Ast<. 
the  chasul)lf,  the  processions,  and  other  external  matters  that  your  prin<  t 
will  not  abolish,  my  opinion  is  this:  If  he  allows  you  to  preach  the  go.-, 
pel  of  Jesus  CJirist  in  its  purity,  without  any  human  additions,  .  .  .  then 
I  say,  (;o  through  whatever  cerenionies  he  recpiires,  whether  they  relate 
to  carrying  a  gold  or  .silver  cro.ss,  to  chasuble  of  velvet,  of  silk,  or  linen, 
to  cope,  or  what  not.  If  he  is  not  satisfied  with  one  cope  or  chasu!)k, 
put  on  three,  after  the  fashion  of  the  iiigh  priest  Aaron,  who  wore  thi.  e 
robe.s,  one  upon  the  other,  all  beautiful  and  gorgeous  garments.'" 
Mkhclet,  456.  To  Carlyle,  the  born  Presbyterian,  the  difference  be 
tween  a  chasuble  and  a  cassock  was  trifling;  both  were  articles  of 
ecclesiastical  man-miilinerv. 


LECTiJRK  TV]  THE  IfEA'O  AS  PK/EST 


337 


li>n  10  Karlstadt's  wild  image-breaking.  Tw.,  of  the  Koformers, 
Storch  and  M.inzei,  went  l,ey,.ncl  l.utl.er's  teaching;  aii.l  a<lv.,catecl  the 
total  banishment  of  priests  and  I'.il.les.  They  were  driven  away  from 
Zwickau  and  came  to  Wittenl.ery.  where  Karlstadt  joined  them.  The 
consequence  of  their  prea,  hinj,'  was  an  attack  on  the  churches,  break- 
ing of  images,  and  general  disor.ler.  See  I  )'Aul.igne, //n/,.;-;'  of  the 
K.fprmatioH,  bk.  ix.  ,}'•,  ;  and  MLIi.!,l,  \s,,)^\-^o  ;  and  //-.,  36S  f. 

159  17  Anabaptists.  Tlie  shape  which  the  Reformation  tor.k  at 
Minister  in  1532  was  strange  enough,  opposition  to  infant  baptism,  calls 
to  repentance,  and  pulygamy.  .See  MuhcLt,  2J0-2.1S ;  and  ,h..  Appendix, 
40 1 .  '  ' 

159  IT  Peasants' War.  One  consequence  of  the  Reformation,  a 
ten  months-  struggle  in  .5.-5  of  tlie  peasants  with  the  nolnlity  to  obtain 
bare  justice.  Prof.  T.  M.  Lindsay  (E'uy,.  j:,U.)  holds  that  l.utherfailed 
at  this  crisis,  lost  his  head,  and  at  last  took  the  wrong  side.  For  the 
petition  of  the  peasants  and  Luther's  answer  to  them,  see  MicheUt, 
161-1S0;  and //'.,  Appendi.\,  370-37G. 

160  r»  Richter  says.  "Luther's  prose  is  a  half-battle;  few  deeds 
are  equal  to  his  words."  Esuiy<.  /,„;,  /'„„/  /■,„■,/,;,  k  Ruhter,  If, 
215;  quoted  from  Voruhulr.  s.  5,5.  -  Thougl,  his  wor<ls  were  half 
battles,  as  Jean  I'a.il  says,  stronger  than  anillevv.  v,  t  among  his  friends 
he  was  the  kindest  of  men."  /../..  ,3,.  T!,„  p'l.r'.se  is  :.Ko  quoted  by 
Carlyle,  Ess.,ys,  I.utJur's  P.uilnu  11,24.-  //'■,  OWM,'.  U'ork^,  III 
19;. 

160  ir.     « Devils '  in  Worms,     .'^ee  154  :.':)  n. 

160  3.T  Luther  sat.  See  Coleridge.  The  /-n.,!,/.  l-ust  I.a,,di„>^- 
rtace.  Essay  2.  for  a  long  discussion  of  this  ini  id,  nt.  "  Lis.  nach,  with 
its  Wartburg,  where  Luther  lay  conre.ile.i  transl.iting  the  i'ible  :  there 
I  spent  one  of  the  most  interesting  forenoons  I  ever  got  by  trav- 
elling      They  open  a  door,  yr,u  entr,  a  little  apartment,  a  v.ry  poor, 

low  room  with  an  old  le.ul.  n  lattire  wi,„!ow,  to  nu.  the  ,no,t  venerable 
of  all  rooms  I  ev.  r  entered.  ...  I  kj.s,  cl  his  old  oak  tabh,.,  looked 
out  of  his  window -making  tlum  open  it  f,.,  me -and  thought  to 
myself.  'Here  once  live.l  one  of  ,;o,r,  soldiers,  be  h<.„„u,  .yiven 
him.'"  Carlvlk.  to  his  luotlur,  (pioted  by  llhint,  T/ir  C\uiv/,s' 
Clulsfa  Home,  p.  46.      I.r.nd  ,  1.S95.      See  C.I..I..  II,  1  17. 

161  ;i  The  Devil  is  aware.  In  a  letter  to  the  i:iector.  daicd  Ash 
Wednesday,  1522.  ••  The  devil  well  knows  it  was  not  bar  made  me  do 
this:  he  saw  my  heart  when  I  entered  Worms,  and  knows  perfectly 
well,  that,  had  the  city  been  as  full  of  devils  as  there  are  tiles  on  the 


i 


fi  ii 


4^^^^ 


338 


NOTES 


[Lecture  IV 


house-tops,  I  would  joyfully  throw  myself  among  them.  Now  Duke 
George  is  even  less  in  my  eye  than  a  devil.  ...  If  God  called  me  to 
J^eipzig,  as  he  does  to  Wittenberg,  I  would  go  there,  though  for  nine 
whole  days  together  it  were  to  rain  Duke  Georges,  and  every  one  of 
them  were  nine  times  more  furious  than  this  devil  of  a  duke  is." 
MicheUt,  ii8  f. 

162  6  Luther's  Table-Talk.  Michelet's  Life  of  Luther,  translated 
by  Hazlitt  (Bogue's  European  Library,  Lond.,  1846),  furnishes  the 
English  reader  with  the  readiest  means  of  understanding  the  Table-Talk, 
as  it  is  almost  wholly  constructed  out  of  it.  The  references  are  given, 
and  there  is  a  copious  Appendix.  "  Luther's  Table-Talk  is  still  a  vener- 
able classic  in  our  language."     Essays,  State   of  German   Literature, 

1.35- 

162  13  He  is  resigned.  Chapter  i,  book  v,  of  Michelet's  Life  is 
devoted  almost  entirely  to  this  incident.  The  child  died  in  1 542  at  the 
age  of  fourteen  ;  her  name  was  Magdalene,  not  Margaret,  as  Carlyle 
put  it  both  here  and  in  1.  18  of  the  first  edition,  H '.  "When  his 
daughter  was  very  ill,  he  said  :  '  I  love  her  well ;  yet,  O  my  God  !  if  it 
be  thy  will  to  take  her  hence,  I  will  resign  her  without  regret,  into  thy 
hands.'  As  she  lay  in  bed,  he  said  to  her :  '  My  dear  little  daughter, 
my  darling  Magdalen,  thou  wouldst,  doubtless,  willingly  remain  here 
with  thy  poor  father,  but  thou  wouldst  also  go  hence  willingly  to  thy 
other  Father,  if  he  call  thee  to  him .' ' "     Michelct,  298. 

162  20  his  solitary  Patmos.  Luther  dated  his  letters  from  the 
Wartburg,  "from  the  Isle  of  Patmos";  it  is  Carlyle's  name  for  Craigen- 
puttoch. 

162  23  flights  of  clouds.  "  I  have  lately  seen  two  signs  in  the 
heavens:  I  was  looking  out  of  my  window  in  tlie  middle  of  the  night. 
and  I  saw  the  stars,  the  whole  majestic  vault  of  God,  supporting  itself, 
without  my  being  able  to  perceive  the  columns  upon  which  the  Master 
rested  it ;  yet  it  fell  not.  ...  In  the  morning  I  saw  huge,  heavily-ladin 
clouds  floating  over  my  head,  like  an  ocean.  I  saw  no  pillars  support- 
ing the  enormous  masses ;  yet  they  fell  not,  hut,  saluting  me  gloomily, 
passed  on  ;  and,  as  they  passed  on,  I  perceived,  beneath  the  curve  whicli 
had  sustained  them,  a  delicious  rainbow."     Michelet,  307  f. 

162  27  bMuty  of  the  harvest-fields.  "Another  day,  on  his  way  tn 
Leipzig,  seeing  the  surrounding  plains  covered  with  the  most  lu.xuriant 
crops  of  wheat,  he  fell  to  praying  with  the  utmost  fervour,  exclaim 
ing:  'O  God  of  all  goodness,  thou  hast  bestowed  upon  us  u  vear  of 
plenty.  .  .  .     Thy  voice  causes  to  spring  out  of  the  earth,  and  out  of  thi 


Leciure  IV]  THE  HERO  AS  PRIEST 


339 


sand  of  the  desert,  these  beautiful  plants,  these  green  blades,  which  so 
rejoice  the  eye.  (i  Father,  give  unto  all  thy  children  their  daily 
bread.'  "  MichiUt,  266.  cited  from  Lutlu-rs  lUUfe,  v,  not  the  Tisch- 
redcn.  The  passage  also  refers  to  spring,  not  harvest,  and  to  Luther's 
going  to,  not/rom,  I.tipzig. 

163  a  That  little  bird.  "  f)ne  evening,  doctor  Luther,  seeing  a 
little  bird  perching  on  a  tree,  and  taking  up  its  rest  for  the  night, 
observed :  '  That  little  bird  has  chosen  its  shelter  and  is  about  to  go  to 
sleep  in  tranquillity:  it  has  no  disquietude,  neither  does  it  consider 
where  it  shall  rest  to-morrow  night,  but  it  .sits  in  pea.  e  on  that  .slender 
branch,  leaving  it  to  (lod  to  provide  for  it.'  "  Mic/ni.t,  266,  cited  from 
Tischreden,  ^T,.     Frankfort.  1568. 

163  13  The  Devils  fled.  "  .Music,  too.  is  very  good  ;  for  the  devil 
IS  a  saturnine  spirit,  and  music  is  hateful  to  him.  and  drives  him  far 
away  from  it."  Mic/ula,  :iy.,  cited  from  risc/nrdn,  238.  Cp 
"  .Sathan  fleuhet  die  Musica."  ColloquU,  Mcnsalia,  fol.  217.  Frankfort 
1571. 

163  17  Luther's  face.  "The  wild  kind  of  fo  ,  that  was  in  him 
appears  in  the  physiognomy  of  the  portrait  by  Luke  Chranak.  his 
Iiainter  and  frien.l.  the  rough  ])lel.eian  countenance,  with  all  sorts  of 
noble  thoughts  shining  out  through  it.  Ihat  was  precisely  Luther  as 
he  appears  through  his  whole  history."     /../,.  i  y. 

165  1 1  the  Mayflower.  The  Mayjlo-.vcr  .sailed  from  Southampton  • 
the  ship  that  brought  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  from  Delftshaven  was  the 
Speedwell. 

165  30  Neal's  History  of  the  Puritans.  The  account  in  Neal 
does  not  correspond  e.xactly  to  what  farlyle  gives  here.  The  words  of 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Robin.son.  as  quoted  in  the  edition  of  1754  („ot  1755).  are 
chiefly  warnings  against  the  Lutherans  and  falvinisi.s.  and  advice  to 
his  flock  to  "shake  off  the  name  of  Hrownists." 

166  15    History  of  Scotland,     fp,  88  u  n. 

166  17  Knox.  In  his  tenth  lecture  of  the  course  in  1838.  Carlyle 
notices  incidentally  the  most  common  view  of  Knox:  "A  poor  notion 
of  moral  motives,  he  (Robertson)  must  have  had;  in  his  description  of 
Knox,  for  instance,  he  can  divine  no  better  motive  for  him  than  a  mis- 
erable hunger,  love  of  plunder,  and  the  influence  of  money;  and  such 
was  Hume's  view  also!  The  same  is  remarkable  of  Clibbon  in  a  still 
more  contemptible  way."  /../.  176.  Mrs,  Carlyle  was  a  descendant 
of  Knox,  and  Carlyle  shows  his  admiration  for  him  as  a  great  Scots- 
man, in  his  private  letters  and  elsewhere. 


-1 


340 


NOTES 


[Lkcturf.  IV 


Of  the  Lady's  song,  Thyrsis 


•'  r 


m 
'if'' 

i 


1-^ 


166  3,1    under  the  ribs  of  .  .  .  death, 
says: 

I  was  all  cnr 
And  took  ii\  -trains  that  might  create  a  soul 
Undtr  the  ribs  of  death. 

Comus,  560-562. 

167  33  tumult  in  the  High  Church.  .Arising  from  Jenny  Geddes 
flinging  lier  stool  at  the  r.i.sh<.p'.s  head,  as  a  protest  against  the  "  Mass." 
See  Carlyle,  llistoiical  Skcttlus,  307-310  (l.ond.,  1S98),  for  a  lively 
account  of  it. 

168  i  glorious  Revolution,  of  16SS.  It  was  so  styled  officially. 
See  Carlyle's  CiomuhU's  Li-tlas  an,!  Sf^.-.ihi-s,  end. 

168  0    Ditch  of  Schweidnitz.     Cp.  aiit.\  1S7  'J4  n. 

168  i:(  official  pumps.  Il.vplained  in  another  edition  of  Heroes  as, 
"  Reference  to  extravagant  and  alfecled  dress  of  the  age."  Purnps  and 
silk  stockings  (with  knee-tirecL-hes)  are  still  part  of  "  utticial"  dress  of 
various  kinds  in  Knghuul,  a>,  fur  example,  the  "Windsor  uniform." 

168  i:t  Universal  three-times-three.  As  thi.s  phrase  has  been 
explained  as  '•  Reference  to  the  battle-cry,  'A  Free  Parlianient  and  the 
Protestant  religion,'"  it  may  he  wrll  to  mention  that  it  denotes  simply 
the  tripling  of  the  usual  tiin-'  thecis,  •  hip  hip-hurrah.'  For  an  em- 
barrassing multiplication  of  cheir.s,  to  express  still  greater  enthu.siasni. 
See    T/iroN.;/!  the  Lookini^-Cliiss,  end. 

168  lit  Half-and-half.  In  the  political  language  of  the  day,  the 
middle  term  between  Radic;cl  and  I'ltr.i  ;   lailii',  mugwump. 

168  JO    in  French  galleys.     See  170  11;  n. 

168  -js  shot  at.  I  cannot  lind  that  Knox  was  .shot  at  through  his 
windows. 

169  do  St.  Andrew's  Castle.  "  Ti-ough  a  monk,  he  determined 
now  to  have  nothing  to  do  witii  Calliolicism,  and  lie  withdrew  from  all 
prominence  in  the  world  until  he  had  reached  the  age  of  forty-three,  an 
age  of  quietude  and  composure.  When  he  was  besieged  in  the  Castle 
of  St.  Andrew's  along  witii  his  master,  whose  children  he  had  educated, 
he  had  many  t  onfrrences  with  his  mastt  r's  oiiajjlain.  The  latter  having 
first  consulted  witli  the  people,  who  were  an.xious  to  hear  Knox  preacii 
too,  suddenly  addressed  him  from  the  pulpit,  .saying  that  it  was  not 
right  for  him  to  sit  still  when  great  things  were  being  spoken  ;  that  tlu' 
harvest  was  great,  but  tiie  laiiourers  were  few  ;  that  he  (the  chaplaini 
was  not  so  great  a  man  as  Knox,  and  that  all  were  doirous  to  hear  the 
latter;  '  i.s   it   nut   so,   btelhrcn.^'    i-,e   a~kcd,   to   which    lliey   assented. 


Lecture  IV] 


Tt/E   1/ERO  AS  PRIEST 


341 


Knox  then  had  to  got  into  the  pulpit,  treinl)ling.  with  a  pale  face,  and 
hnally  burst  into  tears,  and  camu  down,  not  having  lieen  able  to  sav 
a  word."    L.L.  1 53  f .  ' 

170  .-,  baptism  he  was  called.  Adaptation  of  Luke  xii.  :o.  See 
also  170  ifi  n. 

170  6  «  burst  into  tears.'  Knox  is  the  authority  for  this  incident  • 
see  his  collected  Works  (td.  I.aing,,  1.  ,S6-i8,S.  After  stating  kough'J 
charge,  Knox  continues:  "And  in  the  end,  he  said  to  those  that  war 
present.  '  Was  not  this  your  charge  to  n.e  ?  And  do  ye  not  approve 
this  vocatioun.''  They  answered,  -It  was  and  we  approve  it ' 
W  hairat  the  said  Johnne  abashed,  byrst  forth  in  n.aist  abundand  tearis, 
and  withdrew  him  self  to  his  chalmer."  Works,  I.  iSS.  Edin..  1S46. 
I'arlyle  makes  the  scene  a  trifle  nmre  dramatic. 

170  Hi  Galley-slaves.  ••  It  was  a  tiery  kind  <,f  baptism  that  ini- 
tiated him.  He  had  becme  a  preaciier  not  three  months,  when  the 
ras.i.   surrendered,  and  they  were  all  taken  prisoners  and  worked  as 

galley   slaves   on    the   river    Loire,  contined  fur   life    there Seven 

years  after  we  find  him  escaping  from  the  hrench  galleys,  when  he  came 
to  Kngland."  /../..  ,54.  .•  lie  never  gave  up,  even  in  the  water  of  the 
ix^ire.  .  .  .  Their  Virgin  Mary  was  once  brought  fur  some  kind  of 
reverence  to  the  people  of  the  galley,  and  it  was  handed  to  Knox  first- 
but  he  saw  nothing  there  but  a  painted  piece  of  wood  _a 'pented 
bredd,'  as  he  called  it  in  his  Scotch  dialect;  and  on  their  pressing  him, 
lie  threw  it  into  the  water,  saying  that  '  the  Virgin,  being  wooden,  would 
swim.'"  //..,  155.  See  McCric,  Uf,  0/  John  Knox,  I,  6S,  Kdin.. 
1814,-  and  Hume  lirown, /.//;/  K,wx,  A  Hu^f^'ni/^hv,  \.  84.  Original 
authority.  Knox's  A',/orm„/ioii  ni  Scotlan,/,  bk.  i.  See  Works  (ed. 
I.aing),  I.  227.     Kdin..  1S46. 

170  L>8  told  his  fellow-prisoners.  "The  said  Maister  fames  a.ui 
lohne  Knox  being  intill  one  galay,  and  being  woun.lerous  familiare 
with  him,  would  often  tymes  ask  his  judgement.  -  \{  he  thought  that 
ever  thei  should  be  deliveied  ?"  Whose  answer  w,.s  ever,  fra'the  day 
that  thei  entered  in  thegalayl.,  -That  Cod  wold  delive,  thame  from 
that  l!ondage,  to  his  glorie,  evin  in  this  lyef."  "  K.vox,  Reformation  in 
Siotlnnd.  bk.  i.   Works,  I.  22S. 

171  !.  He  lies  there.  '•  It  was  truly  said  of  him  on  his  deatii-bed 
by  tlie  ^;arl  of  Morton,  'There  he  lies  that  never  feared  the  face  of 
man!'"  L.L.  156.  Not  cpiite  accurate  in  form.  -As  he  stood  by 
the  grave,  the  Regent  Murray,  with  that  sentenli.)usness  of  speech  for 
which  he  was  noted,  pronounced  the  memorable  eulogy  on  the  dead  — 


ft? 


•If 


ii 


h  '" 


m 


I 


M 


'I 


342 


NOTES 


[Lecturk  I 


'Here  lies  one  who  neither  flattered  nor  feared  any  flesh.'"  IIim 
Brown, y<j//«  Knox,  A  /Uoj^nt/ihy,  II,  288.  I.ond.,  1895.  For  varian 
see  ib.,  n.  2.  The  form  here  given  is  from  Melville's  Diary,  4; 
Carlyle  follows  McCrie;  see  the  latter's  Li/c  of  John  Knox,  II,  2j. 
Edin.,  1814. 

171  21  actual  narrative.  See  Knux,  Works  (ed.  Laing,  1846),  1 
277-392.  "  His  rude,  brutal  way  of  speaking  to  Queen  Mary.  Now, 
confess  that  when  I  came  to  read  these  very  speat  hes,  my  opinion  < 
these  charges  was  that  they  are  quite  undeserved.  It  was  (juite  impi>. 
sible  for  any  man  to  do  Kno.x's  functions  ami  be  civil  too;  he  ha 
either  to  be  uncivil,  or  to  give  up  f-coiland  and  Protestantism  alt' 
gether !  Mary  wanted  to  make  of  Scotland  a  mere  sliooting-groun 
for  her  uncles,  the  Cluises."     /,./,.  1  56. 

V^l  a    Better  that  women  weep.     Original  source  not  found. 

172  H  Mary  herself,  "((insidering  the  actual  relations  of  the  tw 
parties,  it  is  absurd  to  spi'ak  of  Knox  as  a  coarse  man  of  the  peopli 
bullying  a  defenceless  (pieen.  Tiie  truth  is,  that  if  there  was  .mi 
attempt  at  browl)eating,  it  was  on  Mary's  part  and  not  ;.n  that  >'■ 
Kno.x."  Ifi:MK  Hkiiwn./i";;/ A'//.'.r,  ,/  Hioi^iaplty,  1,  196.  I.ond.,  i8y; 
Who  are  you?  "  What  have  ye  to  do,"  said  sche,  "with  my  marria,L,'c 
Or  wliat  ar  ye  witiiin  this  Commoini  wealth  ? "  "  .\  subject  born 
within  the  same,"  said  he,  "  Madam."  Kni  >\,  KcjWntittion  in  Scotlau,, 
bk.  iv.      Works  (ed.  Laing),  H,  3SS. 

172  is  Tolerance  has  to  tolerate.  Here  ("arlyle  joins  hands  witi 
Newman,  who,  he  said,  had  not  the  brains  of  a  ralil)it.  t'p.  •'  We  ar 
none  of  us  tolerant  in  wliat  concerns  us  (l<-eply  anil  entirely."  Cm  ^ 
RincK,  'l\illf-7\ilk,  izc).     I.ond.,  i8S.(. 

173  !i  virtual  Presidency.  Cailyle  notes  tlie  same  thing  o 
Luther.     Cp.  aiiti-,  158  -Ji;. 

173  10    subject  born.     Cp.  suj^ra,  172  s  n. 

173  :in  His  History.  Thr  History  <_/"  th,-  Ktformation  in  SiOtland 
it  occupies  the  first  two  volumes  of  the  collected  works,  ed.  Laini: 
1S46.  For  a  most  interesting  estimate  of  the  work,  see  Hume  Brown 
John  Knox,  A  /uo^ia/''iy,  bk.  v,  crp.  ii. 

173  :ii  two  Prelaies.  "Above  all,  there  is  in  him  a  genuim 
natural  rusticity,  a  tiecided  earnestness  of  purpose;  the  good  naiiii! 
and  humour  appear  in  a  very  striking  way,  not  as  a  sneer  altogetlu  r 
but  as  a  real  delight  at  seeing  ludicrous  objects.  Thus  wlien  lu 
describes  two  archbislio])s  quarrelling,  no  doubt  he  was  delighted  to  -u 
the  disgrace  it  brought  on  their  church  :  but  he  was  cliielly  excitctl  \i] 


Lecture  V]     THE  IIENO  AS  MAX  OJ-  LETTEKS 


343 


the  really  ludicrous  spectacle  of  rochets  flying  alnrnt  and  vestments 
torn,  and  the  struggle  each  made  to  overturn  the  other."  /,./,.  155. 
••  Cuming  furth,  (or  going  in,  all  is  one,)  at  the  qweir  doore  of  (Jlasgow 
Kirk,  begynnes  stryving  for  state  betuix  the  two  croee  heraris,  so  that 
from  glowmyng  thei  come  to  schouldering;  frome  schouldering.  thei  go 
to  huffettis,  and  from  dry  blawes,  by  neffis  and  nulfelling  j  and  then  for 
cheriieis  saik,  thei  crye,  Disfcrsif,  ,i,;lit  /'ait/^.rihis,  and  assayis  quhilk 
of  the  croces  war  fynast  mettall,  which  staf  was  strongast,  and  which 
berar  could  best  defend  his  maisteris  pre-eminence;  and  that  there 
should  lie  no  superioritie  in  that  behalf,  to  ground  gois  boyth  the 
croces.  And  then  begane  no  litill  fray,  but  yitt  a  nieary  game ;  for 
rockettis  war  rent,  typpetis  war  tome,  crounis  war  knapped."  K.nox, 
H'orks,  I,  146  f. 

174  10  faces  that  loved  him.  Cp.  R.  I..  Stevenson,  Familiar 
StuJies  0/  Men  and  Hooks,  John  Knox  and  his  Relations  to  Women. 

174  19    "  They  ?  what  are  they  ?  "    Not  identified. 

174  a-  Have  you  hope  ?  "  Asked  to  give  a  parting  sign  that  he 
was  at  peace,  he  lifted  his  hand,  and  apparently  witliout  pain  passed 
quietly  away."     Hume  Hrown, /<;////  Knox,  A  Juox'ra/^/iy,  1 1,  288. 

175  ao    a  devout  imagination.     Original  source  not  found. 


n 


LECTURE  V   THE  HERO  A.S  MAN  OF  LETTERS 


This  and  the  final  lecture  were  written  down  by  Caroline  Fox  in  her 
diary,  immediately  after  hearing  them ;  see  Journals  and  Letters,  I, 
181-195.     Lond.,  18S2.     They  show  interesting  differences. 

179  l«  Fichte.  Johann  Gottliel)  (1762-1814),  follower  of  Kant. 
His  influence  is  to  be  see''  in  Characteristics  and  Sartor  Kesartus  as 
well  as  here.  See  also  Essays,  State  of  German  Literature,  \,  62-66, 
where  the  passages  briefly  referreii  to  below  are  quoted  fully. 

179  20  Wesen  des  Gelehrten.  Delivered  at  Krlangen  in  1805; 
translated  by  William  Smith,  The  Pof'itlar  Works  of  Johann  Gottlieb 
i'iehte.  The  A'ature  of  the  Scholar,  pp.  239-363.  Lond.,  Chapman 
and  Hall.  1848. 

179  a?  Divine  Idea.  "  The  whole  material  world,  with  all  its 
adaptations  and  ends,  and  in  particular  the  life  of  man  in  this  world, 
are  by  no  means,  in  themselve.s  and  in  died  and  truth  that  which  they 
seem  to  be  to  the  uncultivated  and  natural  sense  of  man  ;  but  there  is 


!•« 


:!■! 


344 


NOTES 


[Lecture 


something  higher,  which  lies  concealed  liehind  all  natural  appeurano 
This  conceal.-(l  foundation  of  all  appearance  may.  in  its  greate^ 
universality,  he  aptly  named  the  Divint  JJai."  The  Popular  Wo>  i 
ofjohann  Gottlitb  Fuhu,  Tht  Nature  of  the  Scholar,  I,  247.  Lond 
1848.  "The  Idea— the  Divine  Idea  — that  which  lies  at  the  bottor 
of  all  appearance,  —  what  may  this  mean  ?  "  Ih.,  p.  256.  Co  Essav 
Diderot,  Uhz^l- 

180  93    light  Of  the  world.     See  Matt.  v.  14 ;  and  John  viii.  12. 

180  94    Pillar  of  Fire.     See  Exod.  xiv,  19,  20,  24. 

180  39  Bungler.  "  If  the  striving  lie  only  after  the  outward  forn 
—  the  mere  letter  of  Learned  Culture,  th^n  we  have,  if  the  rouiu 
be  finished  — the  complete -if  it  l>e  unfinished  -  the  progressiva 
bungler."  Hodman.  "  With  labourers  and  hodmen  it  is  otherwise  :  - 
their  virtue  consists  in  punctual  obedience,  in  the  careful  avoidance  o 
all  independent  thought,  and  in  confiding  the  direction  of  their  occu 
pations  to  other  men."  The  Popular  Works  ofjohann  Gottlieb  Fichtc 
I,  250  f. 

181  1  Nonentity.  "  He  who  has  received  this  culture  withoui 
thereby  attaining  to  the  Idea,  is  in  truth  (as  we  are  n..w  to  look  upon 
the  matter)  nothing."  The  Popular  Works  ofjohann  Gottlieb  Fieht, 
L  249- 

181  7    Goethe.     No  one  was  better  fitted  to  bring  Goethe  before  an 
English  audience,  body  and  soul,  than  Carlyle.     His  reasons  for  n..t 
doing  so  are  disappointing.     What  did  the  British  public  know  of  Odin 
or  Mahomet?     In  1832   Carlyle  wrote:  "  Among  ourselves  especially, 
Goethe  had  little  recognition  ;  indeed,  it  was  only  of  late  that  his  exist 
ence,  as  a  man  and  not  as  a  mere  sound,  became  authentically  known 
to  us  ;  and  some  shadow  of  his  high  endowments  and  endeavours,  and 
of  the  high  meaning  that  might  lie  therein,  arose  in  the  general  mind  of 
England,  even  of  intelligent  England.     Five   years  ago.  to  rank  hi.n 
with  Napoleon,  like  him.  as  rising  unattainable  beyond  his  class.  lik< 
him  and  more  than  he  of  quite  peculiar  moment  to  all  Europe,  would 
have  seemed  a  wonderful  procedure."     Essays,  Goethe's  Works    III 
170  f.  ' 

181  22  heroic  ancient  uan.  "Goethe's  language,  even  to  a  for 
eigner.  is  full  of  character  and  secondary  meanings;  polished,  yet 
vernacular  and  cordial,  it  sounds  like  the  dialect  of  wise,  ancient,  and 
true-hearted  men."    Essays,  Goethe,  Appendix,  I,  463. 

183  31    Art  of  Writing  .  .  .  miraculous.    Cp.  ant.-,  31  ir,-o5. 

184  90    CelU.     Can  Carlyle    mean  Cecilia,    Miss  Burney's   novel  ? 


LECT.TRE  V]     TlfE  IIF.KO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS  345 

Clilford  i;o.Hil,Iynn  allusion  to  I.yt.on'.  novel  r,ul  r/j/?;w  (,,S,o) 
whKh  Klealue,  a  highway  rol.ber.  Carlyle  had  alrea.ly  jeered  a  Pe  ! 
ham  and  h«  au.hor  in  Sartor  K^^sartus.  Sir  Kger.on  ll>^ge«  .'o.e  1 
novel    l/..,.,/,.cv.>./,i„   .800;  and  Sir  Frederick   l-oMock  refer    i." 

184  ....     What  built.     A  variation  of  what  larlyle  said  to  Kmerson 

on     .s  V.SU  to  Craigenputtoch.     »  Did  not  you  tell  „.e.  Mr.  ThoL' 

aye.  s..t.ng  upon  one  of  your  broad  hills,  that  it  was  Jesus  ChX 
Innlt  Dunscore  Kirk  yonder?"    E.Corr.  \    14  '•"'•  v-nrist 

185  6    Teaching.     Caroline  Fox  summari^■cs  this  part  of  the  lec- 
t  re  as  follows  =  "  He  spoke  of  education,  and  resolved  it  into  the  s  n  . 
pie  elen,en,s  of  teaching  to  read  and  write  ;  in  its  highest  or  univer  i  y 
sense  .t  .s  but  the  teaching  to  read  and  write  on  all  subjects  and  in 
many  languages.     Of  all  teaching  the  sublime.s,  is  to  teach  a  tnan  th  " 
he  has  a  soul;  the  absolute  appropriation  of  this  fact  gives  Life  an, 
l.ght  .0  what  was  before  a  <lull.  cold,  senseless  muss.     Some  p    lo 
Lhers  of  a  scept.cal  age  seemed  ...  hold  that  the  object  of  thl  s.Tr 
creation  was  to  prevent  the  decay  and  putrefaction  of  the  iK^dy.  in  fact 
a  rather   supenor   sort    of   salt."      Caroli.u-   /;,..    //,,  jj,,,,  ,„„ 
Litters,  I,   183  f.     Lond..  1S82. 

186  .3  Abelard.  Peter  AWard  (.079-^4.).  famous  as  a  philoso- 
pher, as  a  umversity  teacher,  and  as  the  lover  of  Klo.sa.  See  Long- 
fellow.  Tke  Cold.n  Lci^nuU  iv.  The  K,f,ctory.  ^ 

185  Qf.    Universitas.     Carlyle   repeats  a  common  error       .•  The 
u^iT  T.^   v"'T"^  ""''"'  '  rmvcrsitas  Facultatum -.;,  School  in 
«h.ch  all  the  Faculfes  or  branches  of  knowledge  are  repre.sente<l.  .- 
has,  mdeed.  long  .s.nce  disapjjeared  from  the  pages  of  professe.l  histo- 
rians. .         A  glance  into  any  collection  of  medieval  documents  reveals 
the  fact  that  the  word  •  University  '  means  merely  a  number,  a  plurality. 
an  aggregate  of  persons.  .  .  .     We  find  the  word  applied  to  corpora! 
..ons  either  of  Masters  or  of  students.  ...     I„  ,he  earliest  period  it  is 
"ever  used  absolutely.     The  phra.se  is  always  '  University  of  Scholars' 
•University   of  Masters  and  Scholars,'   'University   of  Study,' or  the 
i.lv-e.       RA.SH..AI...,  Th,-  Universities  of  Europe  in  the  MUJle  A.^es,  I.  7 
186  29    Church  itself,  .  .  .  changed.      Cp.  -The  true  Church  of 
i-.ngland.  at  this  moment,  lies  in  the  Kditors  of  its  Newspapers      These 
preach  to  the  people  daily,   weekly;   admonishing   kings  themselves; 
aclvismg  peace  or  war,  with  an  authority  which  onlv  the  first  Reformers 
and  a  long-past  class  of  Popes   were  possessed  of;    inflicting  moral 
censure;  impartmg  moral  enco.ragement,  consolation,  edification;  in 


ill 


346 


NOTES 


[LrCTfRE   \ 


all  Mays,  diligently  administering  the  Discipline  of  the  Church."  Kstays 
SigHi  of  the  7'inifs,  II,  i  rT). 

187  :>  Primate  of  England.  The  'styles'  of  tlic  Archbishop  o 
York  and  of  tlie  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  respectively. 

187  'U    live  coal.     .See  Isa.  vi,  6,  7. 

187  'M  apocalypse  of  Nature.  See  179  •.>?  n.  open  secret.  Sei 
91  !«!  n.    continuous  revelation.    See  17U  t,  w. 

188  'X\  Church  Liturgy.  See  Sartor,  jjo ;  and  Essays,  Signs  of  th 
Tinii's,  II,  156,  for  the  same  idea. 

188  'Jl  Burke  said.  Kliezer  Edwards  in  his  Words,  Facts  an, 
l^krasis  attributes  this  phrase  to  Carlyle  himself,  and  cites  this  passag( 
as  his  authority;  but  the  discussions  in  Xotcs  and  Qut^rirs  sei-m  to  shnv 
that  Itrougham  originated  the  phrase,  and  used  it  in  the  House  of  Com 
mons,  as  early  a;:  iS23  or  1824.  I'arlyle  employs  the  phrase  in  Essays 
h'oxwi-t/'s  l.ije  of  Jx'hnson,  III,  121  (1832). 

191  :i    Chaos  .  .  .  umpire.    Cp. 

.  .  .  Chaos  umpire  sits, 

And  by  decisUm  more  enibruils  the  fray, 

ISy  which  he  reigns. 

I'lirndiic  Lest,  li,  ((07-9119, 

191  10  omnipotence  of  money.  Carlyle  also  discusses  literary  pov 
erty  in  his  Essays,  Slate  of  German  Literature,  I,  47-49;  and  ib.,Jeai 
I'ttil  Eriedriih  Kit /iter,  II,  196-199. 

192  5  best  possible  organisation.  (,)uoted  from  himself.  Cp 
ante,  190  •.>.>. 

192  H  involuntary  monastic  order.  Cp.  "  Tl  rst  Writers,  bein; 
Monks,  were  sworn  to  a  vt)w  of  Poverty;  the  t.  .on  authors  had  w 
need  to  swear  it."  Essays,  Jioswel/'s  Life  of  j  Anson,  III,  106;  aiu 
Qttiiitiis  Eixlein,  II,  156. 

193  17    Literature  will  take  care  of  itself.     Source  not  found. 

194  :»  the  Chinese.  Carlyle  shows  Scotch  caution  in  approachiiu 
Mandarindom  ;  his  praise  is  not  lavisli.  We  have  seen  the  results  o 
literati  rule  in  China  in  the  war  with  Japan. 

194  w-i  it  is  a  hand.  Quotation  from  Carlyle  himself.  "More 
over  (under  another  figure),  intellect  is  not  a  tool,  but  a  hand  that  c.u 
hand!       ny  tool."     Essays,  Diderot,  \\\,  ^''i^. 

195  •X\  the  third  man.  "  There  is  one  fact  which  Statistic  Scientt 
lia.-,  Loniniunicated,  anil  a  most  astonishing  one  ;  the  inference  fiuii 
which  is  pregnant  to  this  matter.     Ireland  has  near  seven  millions  u 


Lkcturk  V,     77//;  UEKO  AS  MAN  OF  LETTllKS  347 

working  pc-ople.  ,h...  thir.l  uni.  of  whom.  i.  appear*  I.y  S.a.U.ic  Sclcnco. 
ha«  not  for  thirty  weelc.  each  year,  as  many  thir.iraL  p.„a,.„.H  „  wil 
.«t  c.  him."     CV...>.    ,v.     Cp.  ..We  L  Two   Mi.L,,..  .h.;  ,:'! 
drecl  thousanci  m  Ireland  that  have  not  potatoes  enough."    E.-Co,,. 

196  .,     Sceptical  Century.     So  Carlyle  clas.si.ieH  the  KiKhtcn.h 

<  entury;  xee  „,;/.,  51  ,  n. ;  a.ul  his  l.,,tu,..  „„  tlw  /fni.ry  .^ /,,,,,.. 

fur,.  Lorn!..  iSo.r     For  what  .an  lie  said  .„,  the  ...hcr  si.l. ,  ^.e  I  rederi. 

larn.son^  ^  Fnu  nW./s  .,/..,„,  ,/,,  ,-„h,.,„t,,  Century  ,  /»,  x,„eu,„th 

UHtury,  March,  iSSj),  reprinted  in  T/u  </„./.,•  ,./•/;„„/•,. 

196  39    Tree . . .  Machine,    I '..r  the  ...„.,.■  a.,iithcsi,,  see „„t.; 23 a. f 

198  .,  without  prior  purpose.  Carlylc-s  ap^h.^y  „.  >,;„ ;  ,p.  „„/;, 
oi  M  n.  ' 

199  6    Of  Bentham.     fp.  anu,  87  :i -xi 

199  3.  Doctrine  of  Motives.  Cp.  Carlylo-s  .„„,..„.p,  f..^  the 
U  d.tanan  eth.cs  n,  the  ••  Motive-Millwright  •' p.ssa.e  in  .S,,,...  .s,.«. 
Ms,  200-201.  • 

200  ,  PhaUris'-Bull.  Carlyle  has  confused  I Vrillus.  , he  inventor 
<.f  the  bra^en  bull,  with  l-halarLs,  the  tyrant  who  rouMe.l  hin.  in  I.  A 
common  error. 

201  .7     Cagliostro.     See  /,V.,,,,r.  fount      ,./.„/,„.  ,1, 

202  .-.Chartisms,  chartism  was  a  mnvenunt  really  n.o.lerate  in 
.ts  aims  for  popular  rishts.  It  came  to  a  hea.l  in  ,,S,,S.  the  ye  ir  of 
revolutions.  Carlyle  saw  the  fiasco.  ••  April  ,  o  (immort.d  day  alr'eady 
<lcad).  day  o  Chart.st  monster  petition  ;  .00.000  special  constables 
swore  themselves  ,n.  etc..  and  Chartism  .  an.e  to  nothing-.  Kiots  since 
hut  the  leaders  all  lodge,!  in  gaol,  tried,  imprisoned  for  two  years  etc  ' 
and  so  ends  Chartism  for  the  present."  C./.J..  1.  474.  I  lis  comment 
"n  the  movement.  C/nnt.sm,  was  published  in  ,83.,.  the  ve..r  the  ■•  Teo- 
pies  Charter     was  proclai.ne.l.     There  were  .lots  in  conse,uen,  e.  and 

'uartereT  '       '''•  '''"'  '"'"■'""■''   '"  '*"  ''""*^'"''  ''^^""'  «'"' 

203  4  not  as  fools.  Adaptation  of  Kph.  v,  ,3 
203  «  duty  of  staying  at  home.  Johnson  "says  .something  like 
•"s.  In  .777.  he  told  lioswell  of  his  pleasure  on  hrst  entering  Kane- 
I'lgh.  "  Hut.  as  Xerxes  wept  when  he  viewed  his  i„,„„.„.e  army  and 
'^"nsidered  that  not  one  .f  that  great  multitu.le  would  be  alive  a  hun- 
dred years  afterward.,  so  it  went  to  n.y  heart  to  consider  that  there 
•.vas  not  one  fn  all  that  brilliant  circle,  that  was  not  afraid  to  go  home 


348 


AfOTES 


[LRCTI'RR  V 


208  :m    v.K»t  w«xtd  and  oiled,    ('p.  antf,  141  8. 

904  5  FvJr-penct'hAlfpeniiy  a  day.  Carlyle'H  authority  for  thi> 
generalization  1  I.  ^  e  not  |}«en  a!>lu  to  find  in  Hoswtll.  Johnson  tell> 
how  he  UM;d  lu  li.ie  for  Ligiitpence  at  tlic  Pine  Apple,  New  Strret. 
and  his  Of.  '  ca  .lins  how  to  live  in  London  on  £,\o  u  year,  liui 
the  sum  of  I  nu'i.  -half-penny  as  johnsonV  daily  expenses  do«»  n<>t 
appear.  ,       /,  f,   'icswtU's  Johnson,  III,  i2j. 

204  9     'j.'t   !  (  V;  tory.     Mr.  Hirrell  contra.sts  Carlyle's 
Johnson's      li  is  r  ^\  "ct,  and  shows  Johnson's  superii  -'ty. 
jyuta,  Stcc    '  '!■'!■  ,  Pr.Johf  ton,  109-116.     lA>nd.,  ISS;. 
•  lf»'»- .  y      ''p.  ante,  204  a  n. 


Aieer  wuli 
Sc-o  Obit  ft 


fO  1.  P'.- 


206  4 

206  6    !  .K      a'  O't 
that  John  ..        .1 
till  hift  povei  y  belt., 
feet  appearcc  thiou)  '1  ' 
was  perceivi.a  l>y  liic  v 


ri        ','..  Itateman's  lectures  were  so  excelleni. 

'       iiul  get  tiicm  at  second-hand  from  Taylor, 

:treine,  that  his  .Hhoes  were  worn  out,  and  hi> 

1,  he  saw  thut  thiM  humiliating  circumstance 

iiri  t  Church  men.  and  he  came  no  more.     Hf 


was,  too  proud  to  accept  '  f  money,  and  somebody  having  set  a  paii 
of  new  shoes  at  hi.t  door,  hi-  threw  them  away  with  indignation.' 
fiosweWi  /o/iMsoii,  sub  ann.,  1729.  For  Hawkins's  version,  sue  Kssays. 
PosuH-ir s  Life  iffohnsoti.  III,  102. 

207  14  to  be  looked  at.  A  (|uotation  from  Carlyle  himself.  Set 
207  i.'>  n. 

207  \:>  St.  Clement  Danes.  "How  a  true  man,  in  the  midst  ol 
errors  and  uncertainties,  shall  work  out  for  himself  a  sure  Life-trutli 

.  .  .  how  Samuel  Johnson,  in  the  era  of  Voltaire,  i  an  purify  and  fortifj 
his  soul,  and  hold  real  coniniunion  with  the  Highest,  'in  the  Church  ol 
St.  Clement  Danes';  this  too  stands  all  unfolded  in  his  Biography,  ami 
is  among  the  most  touching  and  memoralih-  tilings  there;  a  thing  to  In 
looked  at  with  pity,  uilniiration,  awe."  /.'j.i.;i'v,  liosuu-Ws  Life  if  John  so, 
III,  119  f. 

208  :hi  engrave  Truth.  "Sotinian  i'reachers  proclaim  •  Henev 
lence'  to  all  the  four  winds,  and  have  Tki  ill  engraved  on  their  wati  li 
seals:  unhappily  with  little  or  no  effect."   Kssays,  ChuracUristiis,  III,  r; 

209  9    Mirabeau.     See  /■:ssiiys,  IV,  85-162. 

209  Jfi  Moral  Prudence.  "  Prudence  is  the  highest  virtue  he ' 
(Johnson)  "can  inculcate;  and  for  that  finer  portion  of  our  natun-. 
that  portion  of  it  which  lielongs  essentially  to  Literature  strictly  - 
called,  where  our  highest  feelings,  our  Ijest  joys  and  keenes!  sorrows, 
our  Doubt,  our  iicligion  reside,  hu  h.is  no  word  to  utter  ;  no  rcmctiy. 
no  counsel  to  give  us  in  our  straits;  ur  at  most,  if,  like  poor  lioswtll, 


Lr.tiiiBK.VJ     r//h   //E/CO  AS  AfAX  Of-  LErrKKS  149 

Ihc  patient  1»  importunate,  will  answer :  •  My  dear  Sir.  endeavour  to 
ckar  your  mind  of  Cant.' "  hst„ys,  i.ofi/u,  I.  jji.  "  Higher  liKht  than 
that  immediately/ni«-/iV,//onej  hiKher  virtue  than  an  hont-M  rRii)K.N<lt. 
he  could  not  then  communi.ate;  .  .  .  I  low  to  thrta.l  this  lal.yrinthic 
Time,  the  fallen  and  fulling  Ruin  of  Times;  to  >ilemu  vain  .Scruple*, 
hold  firm  to  the  last  fraxments  of  old  Iklitf.  and  with  earnest  ey.-  still 
discern  some  glimpses  of  a  true  path,  and  ro  forward  thereon.  •,«  a 
world  where  there  is  much  to  Iw  done,  and  htilf  |..  Ihj  known':  this  is 
what  Samuel  Joht.son,  hy  act  and  word,  tuugbt  his  Nation."  fCssavs, 
KosweU's  I.ifi!  of  Jihnson,  III.  1^9. 

209  J!.  A  world  where  much.  S»e  20»  •»  n.  Irom  a  prayer  of 
Johnson^ :  "  And  wl.ilc  it  shall  pl,  ase  thee  to  continue  mv  in  this  world, 
where  much  is  to  be  done  and  littlt-  to  In  known,  teach  me  by  thy  Holy 
Spirit."     liosweirs  Johnson  (( .lol)e  ^1 ).  1 1. 

210  :i  Clear  your  mind  of  cant.  »>iins<.n,  •  ny  dear  friend,  clear 
your  miml  uf  cant."    l^oswdl  ',>  Johns.'      M.iy  1  5,  ,  7S  j.    .And  see 209  ,0  n. 

210  ,    That  Will  be  better.     Unid.  itified. 

21 1  poor  Bowy.  For  fuller  defence  of  Ho-.wvll  and  counterblast 
V-.  Macaulas  see  Essoy^.  Hoswetl's  Life  0/  /o/:nu  ,1,  MI,  76-85.  Cp. 
"There  is  .s,  mething  fine  and  touching  too,  if  we  will  consider  it.  in 
fhat  little,  flini.y,  flippant.  %ain  fellow,  Hoswell.  attaching  himself  as  he 
(lid  to  Johnson  :  before  others  had  discovered  anything  >ublime.  Hos- 
well had  donr  it.  and  embraced  his  knees  when  the  Inisoni  was  denied 
him      Hoswell   was  a  true  hero-worshipper,  and  does  not  deserve  the 

•mpt  we  are  all  so  ready  to  east   at    him."      Cirolni,-  Fox,   Her 
Journals  ami  l.(ttt>s,  I.  1S5  f. 

211  \i    Hero  to  his  valet-de-chambre.     In   .somewi  it  its  present 
form,  the  saving  is  attril.utcd  to  ili<-  Marshal  ile  Catin;.    anc'  Mdf  -  . 
<  'ornuel,  one  of  the  famous  Prkintsei.    Huchmann  tracts  it  ti.  M    ntaif 
Essays,  bk.  iii.  cap.  1.    ( 'p.  "  Milton  was  still  a  li-ro  to  the  p".d  Llwooa." 
Ess<tys,  Schiller.  II.  248. 

211  19  strip  your  Louis  Quatorze.  In  .\/.;fitat,.<,!s  „/  Versa.lles 
{The  Paris  Sket.h-Eook,  1.S40).  Thackeray  expaiiis  tli  s  idea  and  illus- 
trates it  with  one  of  his  delightful  drawings  ot  th  (;r.  A  Monarque,  as 
"Rex,  Ludovicus,  I.udovicus  Kex." 

212  H  brare  old  Samuel.  "  We  have  no  Me:,  ot  Letters  now,  but 
only  Literary  (Jentlemen.  .Samuel  Johnsoi  as  th.  ia-t  that  ventured 
to  appear  in  that  former  character,  and  supr>ort  himv.lf.  on  his  (^.'n 
leys,  without  any  crutches,  purcha.sed  or  stoki  re,  gh  old  .Samuel,  the 
last  of  all  the  Romans  !  "   Essays,  Jean  Paul /-,  ej,       Eu/iter,  U,  196 f. 


iff 


350 


NOTES 


[Lecture  V 


ultimus  Romanonim.  According  to  Plutarch  (Life  of  Krutus),  the  say- 
ing of  Brutus  over  the  dead  body  of  Cassius.  "  There  he  lamented  over 
his  body,  and  called  him  the  last  of  the  Romans :  intimating  that  Rome 
would  never  produce  another  man  of  equal  spirit."  Lauglwrne,  VI, 
23C.     Lond.,  1823.     (1^.  Julius  Casar,  v,  3,  99. 

212  ja  talent  of  silence.  Attributed  to  Napoleon  in  the  form : 
"C'es  Anglais  ont  un  grand  talent  pour  le  silence."     Cp.  258  a. 

212  17  Rousseau,  t'arlyle  read  Rou.sseau  in  1S19.  See  K.Lett. 
112.  Cp.  "Carlyle  did  not  much  sympathise  with  his  works;  indeed 
he  said,  '  The  Confessions  are  the  only  writmgs  of  his  which  I  have 
read  with  any  interest ;  there  you  see  the  man  such  as  he  really  was, 
though  I  can't  say  that  it  is  a  duty  to  lay  open  the  «lue-l)eard 
chamliers  of  the  heart.  .  .  .  Rousseau  was  a  thorough  Frenchman, 
not  a  great  man  ;  he  knew  nothing  of  that  silence  that  precedes  words, 
and  is  so  much  grander  than  the  grandest  words,  because  in  it  those 
thoughts  are  created  of  which  words  are  the  p»or  clothing.  I  say 
Rousseau  knew  nothing  of  this,  but  Johnson  knew  much  ;  verily,  he 
said  but  little,  only  just  enough  to  show  that  a  giant  slept  in  that 
rugged  bosom.'  "     Caroline-  /-ox,  Ilcr  Journals  atid  Letters,  I,  1S6  f. 

213  18  Genlis's  experience.  "Two  months  after  M.  de  Sauvigny 
had  a  play  to  be  performed  at  the  Theatre  Fran^ais,  entitled  the  JWsi- 
Jleur.  Rousseau  h.-id  told  us  that  he  did  not  frequent  the  theatre,  and 
that  he  carefully  avoided  showing  himself  in  public  ;  but  as  he  seemed 
very  fond  of  M.  de  Sauvigny,  I  urged  him  to  go  along  with  us  the  first 
night  of  the  play,  and  he  consented,  as  I  had  obtained  the  loan  of  a 
grated  bo.K  with  a  private  staircase  and  entrance.  It  was  agreed  that 
I  was  to  take  him  to  the  theatre,  and  that  if  the  play  succeeded,  we 
should  leave  the  house  before  the  after  piece,  and  return  to  our  house 
for  supper.  The  plan  rather  deranged  the  usual  habits  of  Rousseau, 
hut  he  yielded  to  the  arrangement  with  all  the  ease  in  the  world.  Tiie 
night  of  the  play,  Rousseau  came  to  me  a  little  before  five  o'clock,  and 
we  set  out.  When  we  were  in  the  carriage,  Rousseau  told  me,  with  a 
smile,  that  I  was  very  richly  dressed  to  remain  in  a  grated  box.  I 
answered,  with  the  same  good  humour,  that   1   had  dre.ssed  myself  for 

him We  reached  the  theatre  more  than  half  an  hour  Iwfore  the 

play  began.  On  entering  the  box  I  l)egan  to  put  down  the  grate,  but 
Rou.sseau  was  strongly  opposed  to  it,  .saying  that  he  was  sure  I  should 
not  like  it.  I  told  him  that  the  contrary  was  the  fact,  and  that  we  had 
agreed  upon  it  besides.  FI.-  answered  that  he  would  place  himself 
behind  me,  that  I  should  conceal  him  altogether,  which  was  all  he  wished 


\    \ 


%         % 


LECTt/RE  V]     THE  HERO  AS  .J/.I.V  ()/■  LETTERS 


351 


for.  I  still  insisted,  but  Rousseau  li..l(l  tlio  .urate  stronj^Iy,  anil  jirevented 
mc  putting  it  down.  During  tliis  little  discussion  we  were  standing; 
and  the  box  was  a  front  one  nr.ir  the  ..uliustia  and  adjdiiiing  the  pit! 
I  was  afraid  of  drawing  the  attention  of  the  audience  towards  us;  to 
put  an  end  to  the  dispute,  I  yielded  and  sat  down.  KMusseau  placed 
himself  ])ehind  nie,  Imt  a  niomeiil  afterwards  put  forward  his  head 
l)etwixt  M.  de  C.enlis  and  nie,  so  as  to  l)e  .seen.  I  told  him  of  it.  He 
twice  made  the  same  movement  again,  and  was  pii.  eiveil  and  known. 
I  heard  several  persons,  looking  towards  our  bo.x  and  calling  out, 
'  TJure  is  A\uimy,iu  !'  .  .  .  all  eyes  were  fixed  on  our  I)ox,  but  nothing 
further  was  done.  The  noise  di.sappeared,  'vithout  producing  any 
applause.  The  orchestra  began,  nothing  w.is  thought  of  but  the  play, 
and  kous.seau  was  forgotten.  .  .  .  The  curtain  rose,  and  the  play  began. 
1  thought  of  nothing  but  the  new  pl.iy,  whi.  Ii  succeeded.  The'  author 
was  several  times  called  for,  and  his  sun  ess  was  complete. 

"  We  left  the  box.  Kou.sseau  gave  me  his  hand;  but  liis  face  was  fright- 
fully sombre.  I  told  him  the  author  mu>t  be  well  pleased,  and  that  we 
should  have  a  delightful  evening.  N(,t  a  word  in  uply.  ( )n  p  aching  my 
carriage  I  mounted;  M.  de  (lenlis  came  ,ift(  r  Kous-e.iu  to  let  him  pass 
first,  but  the  latter,  turning  round,  told  bin)  that  In  should  not  return  with 
us.  M.  de  (;enlis  and  1  jnol  ud  against  this  ;  but  Kousseau,  without 
replying  a  word,  made  his  bow,  turned  his  back  .iiul  disapjv  m-d. 

"I  knew  that  there  was  no  sincerity  in  his  «  mplaint.-  ;  the  fact  is, 
that  with  the  hope  of  producing  a  lively  .sensation,  he  desired  to  show 
him.self,  and  his  ill  humour  was  excited  by  not  finding  his  |)resence 
l)roduce  more  effect.  I  never  saw  him  afterwards."  Mnnons  ij  the 
Countess  iic  Cii/is,    II,   ii-i.).      I.ond.,    i.Sj^. 

213  ^><»    man  of  some  rank.     Inidrntified, 

214  11    appeals  to  mothers.     See /.w//,-,  bk.  i, /■,/.>.!////. 

214  !>!»  stealings  of  ribbons.  Tiie  story  of  the  stohn  ribbon  is  told 
in  the  Coii/i-ssu'iis,  pt.  i,  bk.  ii. 

215  It  Literatureof  Desperation.  (  arlyle  refers  to  Miss  Jewsbury 
as  "a  notable  young  woman,  .  .  .  seeking  passion.iti  ly  for  some  Paradise 
to  be  gained  by  battle;  fancying  ( ieorge  Sand  and  the  'literature  of 
desperation'  can  help  her  tlutherwaid."     CI. I..  I.  ii\. 

215  17  even  at  a  Walter  Scott.  <  arlyle  was  never  .piite  just  to 
Scott.  This  dis|>ar.iging  "even"  is  in  harmony  with  his  disparaging 
review  of  I.ockhart's  ///;•.  Ilis  verdict  would  no  doubt  have  been 
"lore  lenient  h.id  W  waitid  to  r.id  !!•,.■  -cvi  ntli  volume.  Me  was 
reading  Dante  at  the  same  tinif. 


rl 


352 


NOTES 


[Lecture  V 


216  99    world  was  not  hU  friend.     See  Rcmeo  andJulUt,  v,  i.  ^^ 

216  ai    false  reception.    Cp.  ante,  49  as. 

217  6  which  threw  us.  "  My  indignation  yet  boils  at  the  recollec 
tion  of  the  scoundrel  factor's  insolent  threatening  letters,  which  used  to 
set  us  all  m  tears."     Burns  to  Dr.  Moore,  August,  1787. 

217  13  Burns's  Schoolmaster.  Mr.  John  Murdoch.  This  is 
rather  an  unwarranted  generalization  from  Murdoch's  letter  to  Currie 
of  Feb.  22,  1799.  ' 

217  16    seven  acres  of  nursery  ground.    See  217  30  n. 

217  30  Had  he  written.  "  Had  this  William  Burns's  small  seven 
acres  of  nursery-ground  anywise  prospered,  the  boy  Robert  had  been 
sent  to  school;  had  struggled  forward,  as  so  many  weaker  men  do,  to 
some  university;  come  forth  not  as  a  rustic  wonder,  but  as  a  regular 
well-tramed  intellectual  workman,  and  changed  the  whole  course  of 
British  Literature,  — for  it  lay  in  him  to  have  done  this!"  Essavs 
Burns,  I,  301. 

S.18  36     fond  gaillard.     See  Essays,  Mirabeau,  IV,  129,  136. 

218  33    dew-drops  from  his  mane.     Adapted  from   Troilus  and 
Cressida,  3,  225  f. 

And,  like  a  dewdrop  from  a  lion's  mane, 
Be  shook  to  air. 

219  1     shaking  of  the  spear.     A  misquotation ;  see  ante,  56  13  n 
219  9    Professor  Stewart.     "Among  the  poets  whom  I  have  hap- 

pened  to  know,  I  have  been  struck  in  more  than  one  instance,  with  the 
unaccountable  disparity  between  their  general  talents,  and  the  occa- 
sional  inspirations  of  their  more  favourable  moments.  But  all  the 
faculties  of  Burns's  mind  were,  as  far  as  I  could  judge,  equally  vigor- 
ous ;  and  his  predilection  for  poetry  was  rather  the  result  of  his  own 
enthusiastic  and  impassioned  temper  tnan  a  genius  exclusively  adapted 
to  that  species  of  composition.  From  his  conversation  I  should  have 
pronounced  him  to  be  fitted  to  excel  in  whatever  walk  of  ambition  he 
had  chosen  to  exert  his  abilities."  Dugald  Stewart.  Sketch  of  Burns 
contributed  to  Currie's  edition  of  the  poet's  works;  also  quoted  in 
part  by  Carlyle,  Essays,  Burns,  I,  284  f. 
219  19    witty  duchesses.    See  ante,  97  2  n. 

219  23    ostlers  at  inns.    See  219  19  n. 

220  26  Ushers  de  Br&«.  The  incident  is  told  in  Essavs,  Mirabeau, 
IV,  159,  and  Erenck  Eevolntion,  the  BastUle,  bk.  v,  cap.  ii. ' Mera,ri„s  de 
Brhi, 


A 


Lecture  V]     THE  HEKO  AS  MAN  OF  LE  TTERS 


353 


72- 


220  30  work,  not  think.  In  1792  Burns  was  in  danger  of  dismissal 
from  the  Excise  (see  his  letter  to  R.  Graham  of  Fintray,  December, 
1792).  He  gives  a  full  account  of  his  trouble  in  another  letter  to 
Mr.  J.  F.  Erskine  of  -Mar  (.\pril  13,  1793) ;  Carlyle's  phrase  seems  based 
on  the  following  passage  in  it:  ".Some  such  sentiments  as  these, 
I  stated  in  a  letter  to  my  generous  patron,  Mr.  Graham,  which  he 
laid  before  the  Hoard  at  large ;  where,  it  seems,  my  last  remark  gave 
great  offence;  and  one  of  our  supervisors-general,  a  Mr.  C^orbet,  was 
instructed  to  inquire  on  the  spot,  and  to  document  me  —  "that  my 
business  was  to  act,  not  to  think  ;  and  that  whatever  might  be  m  a 
or  measures,  it  was  for  me  to  be  silent  and  obedient."  " 

221  10  Strength  is  mournfully  denied.  See  Quintus  Eix/ein,  Pre/- 
aee.  "  Johnson  came  a  little  nearer  the  mark  than  Hums :  but  with 
him,  too,  '  Strength  was  mournfully  denied  its  arena';  he  too  had  to 
fight  fortune  at  strange  odds,  all  his  life  long."  Ess,ns,  Bos-we/i's  Life 
of  Johnson,  III,  loi. 

222  6    By  dint  of  dining.     Unidentified. 

223  9     This  month.     The  same  contrast  is  drawn.  Essays,  Burns, 

I,  304.    seven  pounds.     See  ib.,  310. 

223  12    cynosure  of  all  eyes.     Adaptation  of  rAi/egro,  80. 
223  20    rank  is  but  the  guinea-stamp.     From  the  first  stanza  of 
Hurns's  Marseillaise  of  Democracy,  "  Is  there  for  honest  poverty,"  etc. 

223  28    observed  elsewhere.     See  Essays,  Bums,  I,  311. 

224  9  light-chafers.  In  Eraser's  A/<rxa:i>te  (Xos.  1,  4;  1830) 
appeared  Carlyle's  translation  of  Kichter's  ruvitw  of  .Mde.  de  Stael's 
VAllemagne.  In  it  occurs  the  phrase,  which  ( 'arlyle  quotes  inaccurately : 
"  From  old  our  learned  lights  have  been  by  the  French,  not  adored  like 
light-stars,  but  stuck  into  like  lijiht-chafers,  as  ])eoi)lt.'  carry  those  of 
Surinam,  spitted  through,  for  lighting  of  roads."     E\savs,  Appendix, 

II,  460.  Caroline  Fox's  version  is:  ••  Wh.it  a  tragedy  is  this  of  Robert 
Hums  !  his  father  dying  of  a  broken  heart  from  dread  of  over-great 
poverty;  the  son  from  cont.ict  w-lh  the  great,  who  W(juld  flatter  him  for 
a  night  or  two  and  then  leave  him  unfriended.  Amusement  they  must 
have,  it  seems,  at  any  expense,  thougii  one  would  have  thought  they 
were  sufficiently  amused  in  the  common  way;  hut  no,  they  were  like 
the  Indians  we  read  of  whose  grandees  ride  in  their  palanquins  at  night, 
and  are  not  content  with  torches  carried  before  tliem.  but  must  have 
instead  fireflies  stuck  at  the  end  of  spears.  ...  lie  then  joW  us  he 
had  more  than  occupied  utir  tinn  and  rii^:hid  down  stairs."  C.iro'im 
Eox,  //er  Journals  and  Letters,  I,  1S8. 


i  I 

5 


i'i-  ^ 
I  'i  r 


I 

■  i 

i 

« 


354 


NOTES 


[Lecture  VI 


LECTURK    VI.     THE    HERO   AS    KING 

226  12    Konniag.     See  ante,  14  a  n. 

225  17    as  Burke  said.     Unidentitieil. 

226  9r,  measure  by  a  scale.  I-  rom  a  famous  passage  in  Schiller's 
A,sil„l,schc  Krzuk.n,.,'  dcs  Ahns,Iuu,  translated  by  (arlyle,  /;..„„■., 
St^tc  of  German  I.,t.,.,tnre,  I,  To.  Of  the  artist,  Schiller  says:  "  Free 
alike  from  the  vain  activity  that  longs  to  impress  its  traces  on  the  fleet- 
ing instant,  and  from  the  querulous  spirit  of  enthusiasm  that  measures 
by  the  scale  of  perfection  the  meagre  product  <.f  reality,  let  him  leave  to 
mere  understanding,  which  is  here  at  home,  the  province  of  the  actual  " 
Evidently  the  first  inverted  comma  in  the  text  should  come  hefore  '  too  '  • 
the  querulousness  is  not  Schiller';;  in  quotation,  the  sense  has  been 
completely  changed. 

226  31  no  bricklayer.  Carlyle  uses  this  figure  in  picturing  the 
Knghsh  Tempi,  of  Fame  (see  Essay.,  Taylors  S.n-.ev  of  German 
Literature,  11,451);  the  endings  are  similar:  "Such  is  the  Temple  of 
fame  .  .  .  which  nothing  but  a  continued  suspension  of  the  laws  of 
gravity  can  keep  from  rushing  erelong  into  a  chaos  of  stone  and  dust  " 
Cf.  in/ra,  229,  14-2S. 

228  32    Kdnning.     See  ante,  225  13  n. 

229  20    Christian  Church,     t'p.  ante,  151  2k  ff. 

230  4     CamiUe  Desmoulins.     See  /-rene/i  Kevoh.tion,  the  Bastille 
bk.  v,  cap.  iv. 

231  3  poor  Niebuhr.  "The  last  political  occurrence  in  which  Nie- 
buhr  was  strongly  interested  was  the  trial  of  the  ministers  of  Charles 
the  1  enth ;  it  was  indirectly  the  cause  of  his  de.nth."  ISinsin  /.// 
and  Letters  of  liartkold  Geony  A.el.uAr,  p.  4S7.  N.  N'.,  ,852.'  ( )„ 
Christmas  day,  .S30,  he  spent  several  hours  reading  the  papers  i„  , 
close  news-room,  became  overheated,  caught  a  chill,  and  died  a  week 
later,  of  inflammation  of  the  lungs. 

231  7  Racine's,  dying.  "The  melodious,  too  soft-strung  Racine 
when  his  King  turned  his  back  on  him.  emitted  one  meek  wail,  ind 
submissively  -  died."  Essays,  The  Jhamond  Xeeklaee,  I V,  27.  ( loethe 
mentions  the  anecdote  in  IVilhelm  Menters  Lehr/ahre,  bk.  iii,  cap.  viii 
L.-Jrans.  I,  147. 

233  3    plated  coins.     Cp.  ante,  14  7  n. 

233  13    Bending  befoie  men.     Co.  ante,  12  la  n. 

233  \^    revelation  in  the  Flesh.     Cp.  „«/<?,  12  12  n 


Lectttrk  VI] 


THE    HEKO   AS  KING 


355 


235  .w    not  the  thing.     <'ar)ylt's  moderation.     Cp.  irw/-,,  150  16. 

236  ;w  Laud  dedicating.  .\  full  account  of  these  ceremonies  is 
given  by  Hume  ;  Ilistorv  of  Gr,;il  Hritaiii,  vi,  cap.  Hi,  pp.  287-289. 
Kdin.,  1818.  The  origin;)!  lutl.orities  cited  are;  Ru.shworth,  H,  76,  77  ; 
Welwood,  p.  275;   1  ranklyn,  p.  3,sr}. 

238  17  Ludlow.  Kilmund  Ludlow,  regicide  and  uncompromising 
opponent  of  ('rom»<ll,  \(u-;'>~\C)C)2\  for  life  see  Diif.  A'nt.  A/V;^. 

239  :)i  Monarchies  of  Man.  See  Sir  John  Kliot,  A  /U(\t^'>;t/>hv.  Lend., 
1.S64.    The  Appendix  to  vol.  I  contains  a  very  full  analysis  of  this  work. 

240  i;t  Baresark.  l!y  this  spelling,  as  well  as  by  the  opening  of  the 
next  sentence,  Carlyle  countenances  this  old  etymology,  and  the  mis- 
take is  often  repeated.  Kluge  derives  the  woril  from  O.X.  bcr-  and 
s,:rkr.,  i.e.,  bear-shirt,  or  clad  in  bear-skin. 

241  3    Liberty  to  tax.     Unidentified. 

243  12    Pococke  asking  Grotius.     See  50  i.->  n. 

244  10  had  fancies.  The  tendency  of  modern  biographers  is  to 
discredit  these  tales  of  (ronnveH's  youth.  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison,  in 
his  short  study  {Tuhlvc  Eiif^lis/i  Stuhsmen),  balances  friendly  memoirs 
against  hostile;  and  .Mr.  C.  M.  Frith  says  {/)i,l.  X,it.  A'/oi,'-)'-  "The 
graver  charges  of  early  debauchery  which  they  bring  against  him  may 
safely  be  dismissed." 

245  14  Ever  in  .  .  .eye.  See  Milton,  .Voww/ <'«//// /W«^'-(;;-/-mr/ 
/<(  Ml.'  (/j,r  o/.sj. 

246  5  crowning  mercy.  "  The  dimensions  of  this  mercy  are  above 
my  thoughts.  It  is,  for  aught  I  know,  a  crowning  mercy"  Cromwell, 
to  Lenthall,  of  the  battle  of  Worcester,  Ldtas  and  Sf^cahcs  (pop.  ed.), 
Ill,  158. 

246  10     without  God.     See  Kph.  ii,  12. 

246  24  Hampton-Court  negotiations.  ••  In  1647,  before  the  escape 
of  the  king  to  the  Isle  of  Wight,  'The  iiimeasurable  Negotiations  with 
the  King,'  '  Proposals  of  the  Army,'  '  Proposals  of  the  .\djutators  of 
the  Army,'  still  occupying  tons  of  printed  pajjir,  the  subject  of  intense 
debatings  and  considerations  in  Westminster,  in  Putney  Church,  -nd 
in  every  house  and  hut  of  Kngland,  for  many  months  past,  —  suddenly 
contract  themselves  for  us,  like  a  universe  of  gaseous  vapour,  into  one 
small  point :  the  issue  of  them  all  is  failure.  The  Army  Council,  the 
Army  Adjutators,  and  serious  Fngland  at  large,  were  in  earnest  about 
one  thing:  the  king  was  not  in  earnest,  except  about  another  thing: 
there  could  be  no  bargain  with  the  king."  Cari.vle,  Cromwell's 
Letters  and  Speeches  (pop.  ed.),  I,  263. 


^1 


llfff 


n 


I  ii 


' ) 


356 


NOTES 


[Lecture  V 


247  8  For  all  our  fighting.  "The  treaty  that  was  endeavourec 
with  the  king,  whereby  they  would  have  put  into  his  hands  all  that  wt 
had  engaged  for,  and  all  our  security  should  have  been  a  little  bit  ol 
paper.  •     Cari.vi.e,  Cromweirs  L.tUrs  ami  Sfccches,  sfcr/.  L 

247  23  genuine  set  of  fighters.  The  present  commanderin-chief 
of  the  Hntish  army  has  expressed  the  same  opinion,  and  his  views  are 
shared  by  other  writers  on  military  history.  See  Lord  Wolseley  on 
the   Hntish  army  in  Harper's  Monlhly  Magazine. 

JAl  96  If  the  King,  fireen  quotes  this  saying  as  genuine  (Short 
History  of  the  linglish  People,  cap.  vii,  Sect,  vii,  p.  539.  N  V  1870)  • 
but  Cardiner.  Great  Civil  War,  III.  ,96,  asserts  that  there  is  no  reason 
for  ascribing  it  to  Cromwell. 

248  ae    small  debt  pie-powder  court.     "The   Piepowder  Courts 

the  lowest  but  most  expeditious  courts  of  Justice  in  the  kingdom,  as 

Chitty  calls  them,  were  very  ancient.     The  Conqueror's  law  De  Fmho- 

rns  shows  their  pre-existence  in  Normandy.     Their  name  was  derived 

from  puJ fnUreux,  Norman  for  pedlar.     The  lord  of  the  fair  or  his 

representative  was  the  presiding  Judge,  and  usually  he  was  assisted  by 

'jury  of  traders  chosen  on  the  spot.    Their  jurisdiction  was  limited  bv 

the  legal  time  and  precincts  of  the  fair,  and  to  disputes  about  contracts' 

'  slander  of  wares,'  attestations,  the  preservation  of  order,"  etc.     Eueye 
Brit.,  s.v.  Fair. 

249  14  Know  the  men.  "  The  curtain  dashed  asunder  faster  than 
before;  an  officer  advanced  and  said  in  passing:  'Learn  to  know  tlie 
men  who  may  be  trusted.'  The  curtain  closed."  Carlvi.k.  Meister's 
Apprenticeship,  bk.  vii,  cap.  ix. 

250  29  internal  meaning.  This  is  Carlyle's  general  form  of  justi- 
fication in  the  Letters  and  Speeches. 

251  9     Tugend.     This  etymology  is  generally  accepted. 

252  .is  ever-calculating  hypocrite.  Victor  Hugo's  Cromwell  is 
an  elaboration  of  this  idea. 

254  11  I  might  have.  Cp.  "  There  is,  doubtless,  a  time  to  .speak, 
and  a  time  to  keep  silence;  yet  Fontenelle's  celebrated  aphorism  / 
might  have  my  hand  f nil  of  truth,  and  would  open  only  mv  little  finger 
may  be  practised  to  excess,  and  the  little  finger  itself  'kept  closed  '• 
hssays,    Taylor's  Sun'ey  of  German  Poetry,  \{,  450. 

257  21  Corsica  Boswell.  What  poor  Hoswell  really  did,  was  to  go  to 
a  masquerade  as  a  Corsican  chief  with  the  words  "  Viva  La  Libe'-a  '  " 
on  his  hat.  Carlyle's  version  is,  "He  appeared  at  the  Shakspear- 
Jubilee  with  a  riband,  imprinted  ' Corsica  Boswell,'  round  his  hat.' 


Lecturr  VI] 


Essays, 


THE  IIEKO  AS  KING 


357 


h  s     Account  of  Corsica,  w.th  the  Journal  of  a  Tour  to  that  Island  " 

Krerh\rd\'"  "'  I'""  '«"'  '"'  ''^  independence  again  te 
French,  and  hero-worshipping  Hoswell  had  "tied  himself  to  the  tail  " 
o  General  Pao h.  "  the  land-louping  scoundrel  of  a  (  orsican."  the  leader 
o  the  .nsurrecfon.  before  he  "  took  up  wi>  "  Johnson.  Johnson  advise" 
h.m  once,  by  letter,  to  empty  his  mind  of  Corsica  (March  .3.  ,768).  an 

hu.  reply  explains  why  he  was  known  as.  Corsica  Boswell.' 
258  9    grand  talent.     See  212  is  n. 

258  13    Solomon  says.     See  Krcl.  vii. 

258  16    want  of  money.     -  He  uniformly  adhered  to  that  strange 
opinion   which  his  indolent  disposition  made  him  utter.     "  Xo  ma^b! 
b  ock  ead  ever  wrote  except  for  money."  "    /,ww/ V  p>..,son  (ed 
lull).  Ill,  19  (a.i).  1776).  ^ 

the'^ffmnl.  ^;  M**1\  '■*'°  "^  ''''"^°'  '"'  ^  -^'^'"^  -'^^'^^  ">  him.  in 
ond  o7f  h  K  "'^'"'"'^  •'"•  ""'  '^"«'^'^''  »'  'hose  who  were 

Lt  whi  e  1  "•  •  •  ;  ./'"'  '"^  ^''°^'-'  "'^'  -P--«'  'hei.  wonder, 

he  said   /A  haJmuch  rather  it  should  6.-  ask.J,  -.chy  he  h,ui  not .,  statue 
than^v>hy  he  had  one."    L..c„ok.vk.  /V„  W.  V  Les,  1 1 1,  .5.    I^nd.. 

258  .T9    Seekest  thou  great  things.     See  Jar.  xlv,  y 
^9.0    Coleridge  remarks.     Not  found  in  77.. /WW,  ^/.,,.«. 

phta  Literaria,  nx  The  Table-Talk. 

in  fl  'V,?f """  "°T-  ,'''''^'^^'''  '"'  ''^•"•■^^^'  ^-•"  "^'^^  came 
n  178..     Gibbon  wrote  his  Memoirs  towards  the  end  of  his  life,  about 

.90.  and  refers  to  Necker  in  closing  the  account  of  his  love  aff a  r  S 
Mde.  Necker.  when  she  was  Mile.  Curchod.     .-  The  genius  of  h"    hi 
band     as  exalted  him  to  a  most  conspicuous  statio'n  in  Kurope      I„ 
o  afa  hTff       P-'-P-ity  and  disgrace  he  has  reclined  on  the  bo.som 
Necke     th     m-      :"'  f '^^'"--"^  ^"-^od  is  now  the  wife  of  M. 

0^489  A  7s,:::  '^t ""'' "'"  '""■'"'  -f^'-^ 

wriM  ;     ■  *■''  "^''''y  **^"'y  ^^^'^  l^efore,  Carlvle  had 

^^T  ''"  ""^^^'^  '°^  "^^^""'^  ^''""^""^^"^'  ^>^a'<  /  Jl  i' 
a  vUit  '•'"  P-^^^'^S^"""-  ••  "  I  could  have  wished."  says  Gibbon,  after 

exh  r^  I  t"^^         ""'  ''"'•'  •''^""'^  f°^  '^'-^  fi"^'  ''-g^-ce],  ..to  have 
demon    f  a"",  ^'  ^  ""^"'"^  '°  ""^  ^^P'""^  >°"'h  possessed  with  the 

i.e  IS  the  most  miserable  of  human  beings;  the  past,  the  present,  and 


M 


3S8 


NOTES 


[Lkcture  V 


I 


V  '= 


I! 


the  future  aru  tf|ually  odious  to  him.  When  I  siiKj^ested  some  domesti 
amusements,  he  answered  with  a  diip  tone  of  despair,  '  In  the  state  ii 
which  I  am,  I  can  feel  nothinj;  Imt  the  I>last  that  has  overthrown  me.' ' 
Cari.YI.K,  Mimtaii(tu\  atiJ  Otlur  Esuiys  Chiijly  J{ioi;^ru/>hiial,  Gz  i 
Lond.,  iS(j7. 

260  l-,>  ears  cropt-off.  See  Carlyle,  llistoricat  Sketches,  271,  f.. 
a  most  graphic  account  of  this  punishment  executed  upon  liastwick 
Iturton,  and  I'rynnc. 

261  4    devout  imagination.     See  .;«/■•,  175  90. 

262  a  Hume.  In  lus  //ist,»y  <</  Unit  lUitain,  cap.  Ixi,  Ilunti 
{juotes  Cowley  on  Cromwell  and  draws  certain  deductions  from  tha 
estimate.  .Such  a  sentence  as  tlie  following  is  typical:  "  If  he  seduct( 
the  military  fanatics,  it  is  to  he  considered  that  their  interests  and  iii 
evidently  concurred,  that  their  ijjnorant x-  and  low  education  expose( 
them  to  the  grossest  imposition,  and  tliat  he  himself  was  at  Inittom  a 
frantic  an  enthusiast  as  the  worst  of  them,  and  in  order  to  obtain  thei 
confidence  needetl  hut  to  disi>l.'iy  those  vulgar  and  ridiculous  hahit 
which  he  had  early  accjuired,  and  on  which  he  set  so  high  a  value." 

263  -i  Cromwell's  last  words.  "  Truly  Cod  is  good  ;  indeed  Ih 
is;  He  will  not  "  —  Then  his  speech  failed  him,  but  as  1  apprehendeci 
it  was,  "  He  will  not  leave  nie."  This  saying,  "Cod  is  good"  he  fn 
cjuently  used  all  along;  and  would  speak  it  with  much  cheerfulne» 
and  fervour  of  spirit,  in  the  mi<lst  of  his  pain.  Again  he  said:  " 
would  be  willing  to  be  farthir  serviceable  to  Cod  and  His  people:  bu 
my  work  is  done.  \ ft  Cod  will  be  with  His  people."  Carlyi.k 
Olivir  CromiViWs  Litters  aii.i  Sp,i\  lies  (pop.  eil.),  V,  I  55. 

263  17  Diocletian  .  .  .  cabbages.  "His  answer  to  Maximian  ii 
deservedly  celebrated.  He  was  solicited  by  that  restless  old  man  t' 
reassume  the  reins  (jf  government  and  the  imperial  purple.  He  rejectr( 
the  temptation  with  a  smile  of  pity,  calndy  observing,  that  if  he  coul( 
show  Maximian  the  cal)l)agi's  he  had  planted  with  his  own  hands  a 
Sahina,  he  should  no  longi  r  be  urged  to  relinquish  the  enjoyment  o: 
happiness  for  the  pursuit  of  pu'ver.  We  are  obliged  to  the  youngci 
Victor  for  this  celebrated  hou  iiw:.  liutropius  mentions  the  same  thinj 
in  a  more  general  manner."     Ciisiidn,  neelnie  and  Fall,  ch.  xiii  and  n 

264  9:1  dismissal  of  the  Rump  Parliament.  Sje  C  'yle,  Olre.i 
Cromwell's  Letters  ami  S/'eeelies  (pop.  ed.).   Ill,    195. 

265  i:(    For  all  our  fighting.     See  247  8  n. 

266  .  Pride's  Purges.  Dec.  6,  164S,  "Colonel  Rich's  horse  st:mi 
ranked  in  I'alaceyard,  Colonel  Pride's  foot  in  Westminster  Hall  aiic: 


%        % 


LKCTtmit  VI] 


THE  IIF.KO  AS  A/XG 


,159 


at  all  entrances  to  the  Commons  Itouse  thw  day:  and  in  Colonel 
[•nde'H  hand  is  a  written  list  of  names,  names  of  the  chief  among  the 
Hundred  and  twenty-nine;  and  at  his  side  is  my  Ixjtd  (Jrey  of  Grol.y. 
who,  as  this  memlx.r  or  that  comes  up,  whispers  or  beckons,  •  lie  is  one 
of  them  :  he  cannot  enter  ! '  and  ITide  gives  the  word.  '  To  the  Queen's 
(  ourf;  and  member  after  member  is  marched  thither,  forty-one  of 
them  th.s  day;  and  kej.t  there  in  a  state  bordering  on  rabidity" 
(  ARLYLK,  Olivet  Cromwell's  /..Iters  and  Speeches  (pop.  ed.).  Ill   89 

266  7  diligent  Godwin.  William  (lodwin.  the  father-in-law  of 
Shelley  J  author  of  Politual  J„stiee,  A  //istory  0/ the  CommoHwealth, 
4  vols.     IjonA.,  1824-1828. 

267  9    Milton,  who  looked.     See  sonnet, 

Cromwell  our  chief  of  nifti.  etc. 

267  90  Convocation  of  the  Notables.  See  Jre»,h  K.-vol„tio»,  the 
lUutitl  ,  bk.  iii,  cap.  iii :  and  Cromweirs  Letters  and  Speeches,  III,  200, 
"  In  fact,  a  real  Assembly  of  Notables  in  J'uritan  Kngland." 

267  97  Barebones.  Clarendon  scorns  them  for  "mean"  men. 
"Truly  it  seems  rather  a  distinguished  I'arliament,  even  though  Mr 
I'raisegod  Harbone,  '  the  Uather-merchant  in  Fleet-street.'  be.  as  all 
mortab  must  admit,  a  member  of  it.  The  fault.  I  hope,  is  forgivable 
I'raise-od,  though  he  deals  in  leather,  and  has  a  name  which  can  be 
misspelt,  one  discerns  to  be  the  son  of  pious  parents ;  to  l)e  himself 
a  man  of  piety,  of  understanding  and  weight, -and  even  of  consider- 
able private  capital,  my  witty  (h.nky  friends  !  "  Cnmnuell '/  Letters  and 
Speeches,   III.  200. 

268  6  Commander-in-chief.  "O,,  U'cdnesJav  zQh  June,  1650, 
the  Act  appointing  -That  Oliver  Cromwell.  Ilsquire,  l,e  constituted 
Captain  (leneral  and  Commander-in-chief  of  all  the  Forces  raised  or 
to  be  raised  by  authority  of  I'arliament  within  the  Commonwealth  of 
I'lngland.'  w.is  passed."     Cromwell 's  Letters  ,iiut  Speeches,  I II.  8. 

209  .^  Cromwell's  concluding  speech.  See  Cromwell's  Letters  and 
ShcJies,  V.  126-130.  Carlyle's  memory  must  have  pj.iyed  him  false 
tperej  for  this  concluding  speech  as  given  in  the  Letters  and  Speeches 
do«i  not  contain  the  phrase  "  births  of  Providence,"  nor  yet  the  still 
more  striking  sentence  (below,  1.  30).  "  \  on  have  had  such  an  oppor- 
tunity," etc. 

270  y  God  be  judge,  "  And  if  tliis  be  the  end  of  your  sitting,  and 
this  be  your  carriage  —  [AVv/Av/,,-  lunv  ail  hcauti/iiliy  hiaziiii;\,  I  think 
It  high  time  that  an  end  be  put  to  your  sitting.     And  I  do  dissolve 


Iii 


360 


NOTES 


[Lkcturk  \ 


S:2: 


THIS  Parliament.  And  let  (JckI  be  judge  lietween  you  and  me, 
Cromtotll't  Utters  and  Speeches,  sfe.uh  jiviii. 

270  31     Htats  «Bd  jMlouaiei.     Passage  not  found. 

372  6  Colonel  Hutchinaon.  The  account  in  the  Memoirs  (ed.  ( 
II.  Frith,  Lond.,  1885)  differs  in  some  respect:*  from  Carlyle's  accoun 
Cromwell  sent  for  Hutchinson  to  get  information  regarding  a  cm 
spiracy  against  his  life.  The  Protector  "  met  him  in  one  of  the  ga 
leries,  and  received  him  with  open  arms  and  the  kindest  embraces  tha 
could  be  given,  and  complained  that  the  colonul  should  lie  so  unkin 
as  never  to  give  him  a  visit  ...  and  with  smooth  insinuations  led  hir 
along  to  a  private  place.  .  .  .  And  after  with  all  his  arts  he  ha 
endeavouretl  to  excuse  his  public  actions,  and  to  draw  in  the  colom 
who  again  had  taken  the  opportunity  to  tell  him  freely  his  own  and  al 
good  men's  discontents  and  dissatisfactions,  he  dismissed  the  colont 
with  such  expressions  as  were  publicly  taken  notice  of  by  all  his  litti 
courtiers  then  about  hhn,  when  he  went  to  the  end  of  the  gallery  will 
the  colonel,  and  there  embracing  him,  said  aloud  to  him,  '  Well 
colonel,  satisfied  or  dissatisfied,  you  shall  be  one  of  us,  for  we  can  ii< 
longer  exempt  a  person  so  able  and  faithful  from  the  public  servici 
and  you  shall  be  satisfied  in  all  honest  ihings.'  "     II,  208. 

272  16  his  poor  Mother.  "Thou  brave  one,  Mother  of  a  Hero 
farewell !— Ninety-four  years  old:  tho  royalties  of  Whitehall,  sayi 
Ludlow  very  credibly,  were  of  small  moment  to  her  :  '  at  the  sound  o 
a  musket  she  would  often  he  afraid  her  son  was  shot ;  and  could  not  b. 
satisfied  unless  she  saw  him  once  a  day  at  least.'  "  Cari.yi.k,  C'/vw 
weirs  Letters  unJ  S/<ee<fyes,  II  I,  64  (Nov.  16,  1654).    (p.  /Iiwie,  LXI,  n. 

274  6    walking  with  God.     See  Gen.  v,  22,  24. 

274  13  EncyclopMies.  The  Umous  /■:/in:/o/'e'</ie  ou  £>/,tio»»ii/r, 
Universel  des  Arts  et  Sciences,  begun  by  John  .Mills  in  1743  as  a  tran^l.i 
tion  of  Chambers's  Cyclofudia,  and  taken  up  by  Diderot  and  I)' Altni 
bert.  The  first  volume  under  the  new  conditions  was  published  in 
1751,  and  the  second  in  1752.  They  were  suppressed  as  injurious  t' 
the  king's  authority  and  to  religion,  fp.  "  They  taught  many  truths,  his 
torical,  political,  physiological,  and  ecclesiastical,  and  diffused  theii 
notions  so  widely,  that  the  very  ladies  and  hairdressers  of  Paris  became 
fluent  Encyclopxdists  ;  and  the  sole  price  which  their  scholars  paid  for 
these  treasures  of  new  information,  was  to  believe  Christianity  an  im 
posture,  the  .Scriptures  a  forgery,  the  worship  (if  not  the  belief)  of  C.o.l 
superstition,  hell  a  fable,  heaven  a  dream,  our  life  without  PiuvidciiLt, 
and  our  death  without  hope."     Coleridge,  T/ie  Friend,  6. 


r'l 


Lectube  VI] 


THE   IfERO  AS  A'WG 


361 


274  16  dumb  Prophet.  The  reference  seen.,  to  J«  ,„  Cromwell', 
"repu.fd  confuHion  of  H,H,ech  "  (250  ■>)  an.l  thf  "  vthemc-nt.  enthusi- 
Mtic,  extempore  preaching"  of  the  Aonin,  11  \\. 

274  W5     F*Ue  «•  «  bulletin.     (  uriyle  is  l.a.l  enough,  but  Kmerson 
u  very  bold.    (  p.  -  I  le  is  a  boun.lle..  liar.     The  official  paper.  hLs  •  .Monl- 
tears,  an.l  all  his  bulletin.,  are  proverb.s  for  saying  what  he  wished  to 
l)e  beheved;  and  worse -he  sat  in  his  premature  old  age,  u.  hi.  lonely 
island,  coldly  falsifying  facts,  and  dates  an.l  characters  and  givinu  t.. 
history  a  theatrical  eclat."     h\fnsv„t.,tir,  .)/,«.  //,  Xa/>oh„,.     '.The 
historian  of  these  times  ought  to  put  no  faith  in  the  I-ulletins. despatches 
notes,  proclamations,  which  have  emanate.l  from  Honaparte,  or  passeil 
through    his   hanils.     For  my  part.    I   believe   that   the  proverb    •  \s 
great  a  liar  as  a  bulletin,'  has  as  much  truth  in  it  as  the  axiom. 'two 
and  two  make  four.' "     H.,:  uu.k.n.vk.  A/,mo„s,  M.  j,^.     i.ond..  i8jo 
One  good  example  of  such  falsification  is  th..  bulletin  from  Acre,  giving 
the  French  loss  as  five  hundred  kille.l  and  one   tlw.u.sand  wounded 
when  the  loss  was  really  three  thousand;  and  the  Knglish  los.ses  arc- 
put  at  fifteen  thousand.     See  Hourrienn.'.  //-.,   I,  cap.  x.x.  p.  jjj. 

275  17  MTans,  Bourrienne  tells.  I  have  found  this  .story Teferre.1 
to  Hazlitt.  I.i/t  of  NapoUoH,  H.  97-1,4,  J.ond..  1S5;.  „hich  I  have 
not  been  able  to  verify;  but  see.  however,  the  one  volume  liourrumu; 
cap.  X. 

275  37    steward  .  .  .  TuUeries.     Unidentified. 

276  i  In  Saint  Helena.  The  memoirs  of  Las  Cases  show  the  very 
opposite  temper  :  "  We  were  all  assembled  round  the  Kmperor,  an.l  he 
was  recapitulating  these  facts  with  warmth  :  '  For  what  infamous  treat- 
ment are  we  re.served  ! '  he  exclaime.l.  '  This  is  the  anguish  of  death  ' 
To  mjustice  and  violence,  they  now  add  insult  an.l  protra,  te.l  tor- 
ment   At  all  events,  make  y.ur  cmplaint.s.  gentlemen  ;  kt  indig- 
nant Kurope  hear  them  !  Complaints  from  me  would  be  beneath  my 
dignity  and  character.  I  must  command  or  be  silent.'"  I.\sC\sks 
M.moin,  I,  162.  N.  v.,  ,855.  This  was  on  his  first  arrival  at  St! 
Helena,  when  his  accommodations  were  at  their  worst. 

276  18  La  carriire  ouverte.  Cp.  •'  ISuonaparte  himself  was  a  reality 
at  first,  though  afterwards  he  turned  out  all  wrong  and  fals*;.  But 
hU  appreciation  of  the  French  Revolution  was  a  good  one,  that  it  was 
'the  career  open  to  talents,"  not  simply  as  Sieves  supposed,  a  thing 
con.sisting  of  two  Chambers,  or  of  one  Ch^.mhcr"  Z./.  195.  See 
Montholon.  Mhnoircs,  ii.  145.  It  was  a  favorite  saying  of  Napoleon's, 
and  is  referred  to  his  speech  at  the  institution  of  the  Ugion  of  Honor. 


•tfl 


361 


NOTES 


[I.rcruKK  VI 


IJ 


276  9fl  Twentieth  of  Jum.  "  While  we  were  ipending  our  time  in 
a  Romewliat  vagal><>nd  way,  the  20th  of  June  arrived.  We  met  by 
appointment  at  a  restaurateur's  in  the  Kue  St.  Ifonorc,  near  the  I'alais 
Koyal,  to  taltc  one  of  our  daily  ramble*.  On  going  out  we  saw 
approaching,  in  the  direction  of  the  market,  a  mob,  which  Konapartc 
calculated  at  live  or  six  thousand  men.  They  were  all  in  rags,  armed 
with  weapons  of  every  description,  and  were  proceeding  hasttily  towartls 
the  Tuilvries,  vociferating  all  kinds  of  gross  abuse.  It  was  a  collt.ction 
of  all  that  was  most  vile  and  abject  in  the  purlieus  of  I'aris.  '  Let  us 
follow  the  mob,'  said  Honaparti-.  We  got  the  start  of  them  an(!  took 
up  i>ur  station  on  the  terrace  of  the  banks  of  the  river.  It  was  there 
that  he  witnessed  the  scandalous  scenes  which  took  place  ;  and  it 
would  l)e  dilticult  to  descrilw  the  surpriHe  and  indignation  which  they 
excited  in  him.  When  the  King  showed  himself  at  the  windows  over 
looking  the  garden,  with  the  red  cap,  which  one  of  the  mob  had  put  on 
his  head,  he  could  no  longer  repress  his  indignation  ;  '  Che  logliom:  I '  he 
loudly  exclaimed ;  Why  have  they  let  in  all  that  rabble?  Why  don'l 
they  sweep  off  four  or  five  hundred  of  them  with  the  cannon;  the 
rest  would  then  setoff  fust  enough."  Hoiikkienni,,  Memoirs,  I,  iS, 
Lond.,  iSjo. 

276  'J9  Tenth  of  August.  "  Heboid  the  fire  slackens  not :  nor 
does  the  Swiss  rolling-fire  slacken  from  within.  Nay,  they  clutched 
cannon  as  we  saw  ;  and  now  from  the  other  side,  they  clutch  three 
more  ;  alas,  cannon  without  linstock  ;  nor  will  the  flint-and-steel  answer 
though  they  try  it.  Had  it  chanced  to  answer!  Patriot  onlookers 
have  their  misgivings  ;  one  strangest  patriot  onlooker  thinks  that  the 
Swiss,  had  they  a  commander,  would  beat.  He  is  a  man  not  unqualified 
to  judge;  the  name  of  him  Napoleon  Honapartc."  L'ari.vle, /K«,// 
KiTolntioii,  The  Constitution,  bk.  vi,  cap.  vii. 

277  J  Peace  of  Leoben.  Itetween  Napoleon  and  the  Austrians, 
April  18,  1797.  See  .Montiiolon,  Memoirs  of  the  History  of  Frame,  IV, 
cap.  xviii.     Ix)nd.,  1824. 

277  17  these  babbling  Avocats.  I.as  Cases  attributes  a  similar 
remark  to  Napoleon  himself.  "  That  ...  he  should  have  exclaimeil : 
'  France  will  be  lost  through  these  fine  talkers,  these  babblers :  now  i- 
the  time  to  save  her.'"     I, as  Casks,  Memoirs,  1,  144.     N.  V.,  1S55. 

277  93  Lieutenant  of  La  Pfere.  "Who  does  not  pity  the  nol.l.' 
chamlK-rlain  that  confesses  his  blood  to  have  run  cohl  when  he  heani 
Napoleon — seated  at  dinner  at  Dresden  among  a  circle  of  crowned 
heads  —  begin  a  story  with  when  I  tvas  a  Lieutenant  in  the  regiment  of 


Lkciukk  VIJ 


/•//A    IIEKO  AH  A/.\U 


M^ 


I.II  F^rf."  f-.imi/y  /.linirv,  /.//,■  of  X„f'ol,on,  II,  37  |,.i  yin-  \s  a 
'  territoriiil  •  name  for  a  rtijiinuni  l,.iv.rs  of  SUviiiv,ii  will  ri-call  the 
town  aa  it  o<  cur*  in  Ah  liilnid  I  ov./vc. 

277  ya    glyen  up  to  a  atrong  delusion.     Ste  a  Tu. »,.  ii,  1 1 . 

278  »  Pope's-Concordat.  riic  a«r»Lirnni  Utwicu  N4|)olcon  and 
l'i>pe  I'ius  VII  in  1S09,  for  the  oltitial  rciognition  of  the  Irtncii  kcpiil)- 
lic  by  the  Curia,  and  the  Church  of  Rome  by  the  K-public.  The 
full  text  ix  given  in  Munthojon.  M,nions  ,^/ Ih,  llntoiy  ,fh,.nu.\  I. 
Affem/ij.  307-J25.  "  The  foncordat  w.ns  n.  .fs^ary  to  reliRion.  to  (he 
Kepulilic,  to  government :  the  temples  w.ii'  >liut  up.  the  phesti*  perse- 
oued.  The  Concord.it  rLJmilt  the  altars  put  an  tnd  to  disorders. i om- 
mandetl  the  faithful  to  pray  foi  the  repul.l:  .  and  dissipatid  tlu-  m  ruple* 
of  the  purchaseisof  national  doma'iKs."     M  >miiimiin.  .1/  moin,  I,  rjo. 

278  II  vaccine  de  la  religion,  -one  day  he  assured  the  prelates 
that,  in  his  opinion,  th^  c  \va.s  no  rtliL;!  .11  but  the  C.nth«  lie.  nhiih  wa.<» 
truly  founded  on  ancicu:  tradition;  dul  -r.  this  n'.u"  i  he  MMially  dis- 
played to  them  some  erudition:  tlien,  vvh.  1.  hi  \.,s  wiih  the  philoso- 
phers, he  said  to  Cabanis,  "  Ih,  you  Im  ,w  w  Mii-  (  n  urdat  is  which 
I  have  just  sij^ned  ?  It  is  the  vaccination  1  t  1,  li^i.  ,,.  ai.ii  m  fifty  years, 
there  will  be  none  in  France!""  Dk  Siai  i.  loin  II,  p.  275.  C.irlyle 
was  reading  her  IkioIc.  i'.'u^uhr.itious  sur  /,  r  I'rnuif^mx  J-.Viiumens 
,h  I.a  KaolHtion  Fran^ohi .  in  1S19.  See  /:'./.</(.  102.  Cp.  .Scott,  L//,- 
of  Xapoli-oii,  cap.  xxi,  n. 

278  1.1  wanting  nothing.  ••  .\  sokmn  /;  D.um  was  chaunted  at 
the  cathedral  of  N'ofre  Dame,  on  Sunday,  the  iitii  of  April.  ...  On 
the  road  from  the  Tuileries  to  Notre  Dame,  I.annes  and  .Xujiereau 
wanted  to  alight  from  the  carriage,  .is  soon  as  they  s.iw  that  they  were 
being  driven  to  mass,  and  it  required  an  order  from  the  l-irst  Consul  to 
prevent  their  doing  so.  They  went,  therefore,  to  NOtn  I  )anif,  and  the 
next  day  I'.onaparte  asked  .Augereaii  what  he  thouKlu  of  the  ceremony. 
•  Oh,  it  was  all  very  fine,'  replied  the  general ;  '  thi  re  w.is  iiothiiij,'  want- 
ing, except  the  million  of  men  who  have  perished  in  the  pulling  down 
of  what  you  are  setting  ui».'  lioiinpartf  was  mucli  displeased  at  this 
remark."  ItncKkiKN.NK,  Af.molru  II.  27.}.  .M.ulanit  <le  Sta.l  gives 
another  version;  see  Cotisidi'mti'iis  sur  /,  r  /'nii, /.''.nix  /■■;  hi,  iiiiiis  Jc 
Lit  A'.vo/iithm  /-ni/iiO/t,;  II,  27S,  Paris,  l.SiS;  ami  the  Duchess 
d'.Xbrantes  gives  another;  see  A/.moirs  of  A',//.'/, v«.  His  Court  ,itij 
luimilv,  cap.  Ixxx;  and  credits  Delmas  with 


s.iying. 


p. 


ont 


pense,  mats  avec  un  serrement  de  c<iur.  ce  mot  <|ue  ce  brutal  Del 


disa\f   en  bouffonnant,  lors  du  Sacre:  II  n'v  ma 


n(|ue  que   le 


mas 
million 


t 

■if  I 


364 


NOTES 


[Lecture  VI 


d'hommes  qui  se  font  taer  pour  supprimer  tout  cela  1 "     Bourget, 
Sensations  d' Italic,  256. 

278  16  Cromwell's  Inauguration.  "  On  the  day  appointed  West- 
minster Hall  was  prepared  and  adorned  as  sumptuously  as  it  could  be 
for  a  day  of  coronation.  A  throne  was  erected  with  a  pavilion,  and  a 
chair  of  state  under  it,  to  which  Cromwell  was  conducted  in  an  entry, 
and  attendance  of  his  officers,  military  and  civil,  with  as  much  state  <as 
the  sword  carried  before  him)  as  can  be  imagined.  When  he  was  sat 
in  his  chair  of  state,  and  after  a  short  speech,  which  was  but  the  pro- 
logue  of  that  by  the  .Speaker  of  the  Pariiament,  Widdrington,  that  this 
promotion  might  not  seem  to  be  without  any  vote  from  the  nobility,  tl  e 
.Speaker,  with  the  Earl  of  Warwick,  and  Whiilock,  vested  him  with  a 
rich  purple  velvet  robe  lined  with  ermines ;  the  Speaker  enlarging  upon 
the  majesty  and  the  integrity  of  that  rol)e.  Then  the  .Speaker  presented 
him  with  a  fair  Bible  of  the  largest  edition  richly  bound  ;  then  he,  in 
the  name  of  the  people,  girded  a  sword  about  him ;  and  lastly  presented 
him  a  sceptre  of  gold,  which  he  put  into  his  hand,  and  made  him  a 
large  discourse  of  those  emblems  of  government  and  authority." 
Clarendon,   The  Gnat  Ribellion,  bk.  xv. 

279  1  blazing-up.  Cp.  "  Religion  cannot  pass  away.  The  burn- 
ing of  a  little  straw  may  hide  the  stars  of  the  sky  ;  but  the  stars  are 
there  and  will  re-appear."     Essays,  I'oltaire,  II,  78. 

279  6  Duke  of  Weimar.  Kari  August  (1775-1828),  the  friend  and 
patron  of  Goethe. 

279  n  Palm.  Johann  Philipp  (1768-1806).  A  bookseller  c,f 
Nureml>erg.  court-martialed  and  shot  by  Napoleon's  orders,  at  Hr.iun.tu, 
Aug.  26,  1806,  for  selling  a  pamphlet  called  Jhutschland in  seiner  li,j. 
sten  Eruiedri^^iing,  which  was  directed  against  the  French.  He  refused 
to  name  the  author  of  it.  The  assassination  roused  the  Germans  and 
had  its  influence  in  bringing  about  the  war  of  liljeration ;  and  Palm's 
house,  like  Diirer's.  is  one  of  the  sights  of  his  city. 

279  29  notions  of  the  world.  For  example,  "  I  should  have 
wound  up  the  war  with  a  battle  of  Actium,  and  afterwards  what  did  I 
want  of  England  .>  Her  destruction  .>  Certainly  not.  I  merely  wanted 
tiie  end  of  an  intolerable  usurpation,  the  enjoyment  of  imprescriptiblt-. 
and  sacred  rights,  the  deliverance,  the  liberty  of  the  seas,  the  inde- 
pendence, the  honour,  of  flags I  had  on  my  side  power,  ", ^disput- 
able right,  the  wishes  of  nations."     Las  Casks,  Memoirs,  July  15,  iSiO. 

280  ;t  another  Isle  of  Oleron.  A  remark  made  to  las  Cases,  on 
May  24,  1S16.     "  England  .  .  .  would  in  course  of  time  become  a  mere 


%     \ 


Lecture  VI] 


THE  HERO  AS  KING 


365 


appendage  to  France,  had  the  latter  continued  under  my  dominion. 
Kngland  was  by  nature  intended  to  be  one  of  our  Islands  as  well  as 
Oleron  or  Corsica."  Las  Casks, /^«r«rt/,  vol.  II,  pt.  ii,  p.  330.  Lond., 
1823.  Cp.  "  Napoleon  must  have  been  merely  jesting,  at  .St.  Helena, 
when  he  said,  that  four  days  would  have  enal)led  him  to  reach  London! 
and  that  nature  had  made  Kngland  one  of  our  islaiuls.  like  Oleron  or 
Corsica.  I  find  these  words  in  my  notes :  '  Remained  with  the  First 
Consul  from  half-past  eleven  to  one  o'clock.'  During  this  hour  and  a 
half  he  said  not  a  word  bearing  any  resemblance  to  his  assertions  at 
.St.  Helena."     Bourriennk.  Memoirs,  II,  474  n.     Ixind.,  1830. 

281  a  The  accomplished  and  distinguished.  This  compliment  has 
the  rare  merit  of  being  both  courtly  and  true.  ( )ne  of  the  '  beautiful '  in 
the  audience,  thus  records  the  close  of  this  lecture:  "  He  then  told  us 
that  the  subject  which  he  had  endeavoured  to  unfold  in  three  weeks 
was  more  calculated  for  a  six  months'  story;  he  had,  however,  been 
much  interested  in  going  through  it  with  us,  even  in  the  naked  way  he 
had  done,  thanked  us  for  our  attenti.in  :ind  synii)athy,  wished  us  a 
cordial  farewell,  and  vanished."  Cmoline  Fox,  IL,  Journals  and  Letters, 
I,  193.  Carlyle  closed  his  lectures  of  i8j8  also,  with  gracious  words. 
"  Nothing  now  remains  for  me  but  to  take  my  leave  of  you  —  a  sad 
thing  at  all  times  that  word,  but  doubly  so  in  this  case.  When  I  think 
of  what  you  are  and  what  I  am,  I  cannot  help  feeling  that  you  have 
been  very  kind  to  me.  I  won't  trust  myself  to  say  how  kind  !  Hut 
you  have  been  as  kind  to  me  as  ever  audiente  was  to  man,  and  the 
gratitude  which  I  owe  you  comes  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart.     May 


11 


God  be  with  you  all 


LL. 


l]\ 


i\'  i 


% 


I 


CARLYLE'S   INDEX 


Agincourt,  Shakspeare's  battle  of,  126. 

Ali,  young,  Mahomet's  kinsman  and 
convert,  66. 

Allegory,  the  sportful  shadow  of  ear- 
nest Faith,  6,  35. 

Ambition,  foolish  charge  of,  256 ;  laud- 
able ambition,  259. 

Arabia  and  the  Arabs,  54. 

Balder,  the  white  Sungod,  21,  40. 

Belief,  the  true  god-announcing  mira- 
cle, 66,  87,  167,  200;  war  of,  235. 
See  Religion,  Scepticism. 

Benthamism,  87,  198. 

Books,  miraculous  influence  of,  183, 
189;  our  modem  University,  Church, 
and  Parliament,  186. 

Boswell,  211. 

Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress,  7. 

Bums,  216;  his  birth,  and  humble 
heroic  parents,  217;  rustic  dialect, 
3i8;  the  most  gifted  Britisli  soul  of 
his  century,  2iij;  resemblance  to 
Mirabeau,  220;  his  sincerity,  221; 
his  visit  to  Edinburgh,  Lion-hunted 
to  death,  222. 

Caabah,  the,  with  its  Black  Stone  and 

Sacred  Well,  56. 
Canopus,  worship  of,  11. 
Charles   I  fatally  incapable  of   being 

dealt  with,  246. 
China,  literary  governors  of,  i<>j. 
Church.    See  Books. 


Cromwell,  238  :  his  hypochondria,  243, 
250 ;  early  marriage  and  conversion, 
a  quiet  farmer,  244:  his  Ironshfes, 
247;  his  Speedies,  252,  270;  his 
'ambition,'  and  the  like,  254;  dis- 
misses the  Kunip  I'arliament,  264  ; 
Protectorship  a.id  Parliamentary 
Futilities,  2r,,S :  his  last  days  and 
closing  sorrows.  272. 

Dante,  9S;  bingraphy  in  his  IJook  and 
Portrait,  <>S :  his  birth,  education, 
and  early  career,  i/j;  love  for  IJea- 
trice.  unhappy  marriage,  banish- 
ment, t/)-.  uncourtier-like  ways,  loi ; 


death, 


his   Dhina  Commeilia 


367 


genuinely  a  song.  104;  the  Unseen 
World  as  figurefl  in  the  Christianity 
of  the  Mi.ldle  .\ges.  iii  ;  -uses'  of 
Dante.  114. 

D.ivifl,  the  Hebrew  King.  53. 

Divine  Right  of  Kings,  227. 

"u'y.  M,  7,1;  infinite  n.iture  of,  86; 
sceptical  spiritual  paralysis,  k/j, 

F.ihla,  the  .'s<.indinavian,  19. 
Kighteentli     Century,     the     sceptical, 

ii/)-J04.  zy). 
Elizabethan  Km.  115. 

Faults,  his,  not  the   criterion  of  any 

man.  5^. 
I'ichti's  thedry  of  literary  men,  179. 
Fire,  miraculous  nature  of,  20. 


I 


I 


368 


LECTURES  ON  IfEROES 


Forms,  necessity  for,  236. 
Frost.     See  Pire. 

Goethe's  'characters,'  120;   notablest 

of  literary  men,  181. 
Graphic,  secret  of  t>eing,  105. 
Gray's  misconception  of  Norse  lore,  39. 

Hampden,  238,  230. 

Heroes,  Universal  History  the  united 
biographies  of,  1,  33;  how  'little 
critics'  account  for  great  men,  14; 
all  Heroes  fundamentally  of  the 
same  stuff,  32,  4:,,  cp,  132, 177,  219; 
Heroism  possible  to  all,  146,  167 : 
Intellect  the  primary  outfit,  121  ;  no 
man  a  hero  to  a  7'(;A-/-soul,  211, 
239.  *49. 

Hero-worship  the  tap-ioot  of  all  Re- 
ligion, 12,  iS,  </>;  perennial  in  man, 
16,  96,  145,  233. 

Hutchinson  and  Cromwell,  238,  272. 

Iceland,  the  home  of  Norse  poets,  18. 
Idolatry,    138 :    criminal    only    when 

insincero,  140. 
Igdrasil,  the  I.ife-tree,  23,  116. 
Intcllftt,  the  sumiiury  of  niun's  gifts, 

121,  195. 
Islam,  64. 

Job,  the  Book  of,  56. 

Johnson's  difficulties,  poverty,  hypo- 
chondria. 205  ;  rude  stlf-help.  2oh  ; 
stands  genuinely  by  tlic  old  formulas, 
207;  his  noble  unconscious  sincerity. 
208;  twofold  (iosjH'l.  of  Prudence, 
and  hatred  of  Cant.  2o<):  his  Dic- 
tionary, 210;  the  brave  old  .Samuel, 
212,  ::5V- 

Jotuns.  20.  41. 

Kadijah,  the  good,  Mahomet's  first 
Wife,  61,  66. 


King,  the,  a  summary  of  all  the  various 
figures  of  Heroism,  225  ;  indispensa- 
ble in  all  movements  of  men,  263. 

Knox's  influence  on  .Scotland,  166; 
the  bravest  of  Scotchmen,  168;  hi-, 
unassuming  career,  169;  is  sent  to 
the  French  Galleys,  170;  his  collo- 
quies with  Queen  Mary,  171;  vein 
of  drollery,  a  brother  to  high  and  to 
low,  his  death,  173. 

Koran,  thi.-,  73. 

I.amaism,  Grand,  5. 

Leo  .\,  the  elogant  Pagan  Pope,  152. 

I.iljerty  and  Equal. cy,  145,  232. 

Literary  .Men.  17;:  in  China,  194. 

Literature,  ch.iotic  condition  -if,  182 ; 
not  our  heaviest  evil,  195. 

Luther's  birtli  and  parentage,  \a,U: 
hardship  and  rigorous  m^cessity, 
death  of  .Alexis,  becomes  monk,  147 ; 
his  religious  despair,  finds  a  Hible,  de- 
liverance from  darkness,  149;  Rome. 
Tetzel.  150:  burns  the  Popes  Bull, 
153  ;  at  thL'  Diet  of  Worms,  1 54 ;  King 
of  the  Reformation,  1 58 ;  '  Duke- 
Georges  nine  days  running,'  161  ;  his 
little  daughter's  deathbed,  his  soli- 
tary Patmos,  162  ;  his  Portrait,  163. 

Mahomet's  birth,  boyhood,  and  youth, 
58:  marries  Kadijah;  quiet,  unam- 
bitious lift',  61 ;  divine  commission, 
('A,  ■■  the  good  Kadij.ih  believes  him. 
.Sfid.  young  .Mi,  66;  offences  and 
sor.'  strussles.  67  ;  flight  from  Mecca : 
beinp  driven  to  take  the  sword,  he 
uses  it,  69 ;  the  Koran,  73  ;  a  veri- 
t.ible  Hero;  Seid's  death,  S2 ;  free- 
dom from  Cant,  83;  the  infinite 
nature  of  Duty,  86. 

Mary.  Queen,  and  Knox.  171. 

Afn\/f<m'cr,  sailing  of  the,  165. 

Mecca,  57. 


CAA'LYLE'S  INDEX 


3» 


Middle   Ages,   ri-presented    by   Dante 

and  ShakHpeare,  iii,  115. 
Montrose,  the  llero-Cavalier,  264. 
Musiral,  all  deep  things,  ()5. 

Napoleon,  a  portentous  mixture  of 
Quack  and  Iloro,  274;  his  iii-.tiiict 
for  the  Practical,  275 ;  his  demo- 
cratic faith  and  heart-hatred  for 
anarchy,  276;  apostatised  from  Ills 
old  faith  in  Facts,  .-jnd  took  to 
believing  in  Scmlilances.  277.  this 
Napoleonism  was  unjust,  and  could 
not  last,  279. 

Nature,  all  one  great  Miracle,  S,  78, 
if>2  ;  a  righteous  umpire,  70. 

Novalis.  oil  Man,  12;  lielief,  (^U\ 
Shakspeare,  123. 

CJdin,  the  first  Norse  '  man  of  genius,' 
24 ;  historic  rumours  and  guesses, 
25  ;  how  he  came  to  be  deified,  2S  : 
invented  '  runes,"  31  ;  Hero,  I'rophet, 
(iod,  32. 

Olaf,  King,  and  Thor,  45. 

Original  man  tlie  sincere  man,  52,  144. 

I'aganism,  Scandinavian,  4  :  not  men.' 
Allegory.  ^:  Nntiire-worsliip.  S.  ^4; 
Hero-worship,  13;  crc-ed  of  our 
fathers,  18,  42,  44  :  Impersonati.  1  of 
the  visil)le  workings  of  .Nature.  20; 
contrasted  witli  (Ireek  Paganism,  22  ; 
the  first  Norsi-  i'liiiiker.  24  ;  main 
practical  Ik-lief ;  indispensable  to  be 
brave,  3^1;  lieart\ ,  homely,  nigged 
Mythology:  lialder,  'I'lior.  311.  40; 
Consecration  of  \'alour.  4(>. 

I'arliaments. superseded  bv  lioi.k^,  iSS  ; 
Cromwell's  P.iiliaments.  2O4. 

Past,  the  whoK'  the  possessiim  of  the 
Present,  47. 

Poi't.  tlip.  nnl  I'roplift.  1,1,  ii.|,  \2-. 

I'uetryand  I'ro^e,distillCtionot,l;4, 103. 


Popery,  157. 

Poverty,  advantages  of,  117. 

Priest,  the  true,  a  kind  of  Prophet,  132. 

Printing,  consequences  of,  188. 

I'rivate  judgment.  142. 

Progress  of  the  .'^p<,xies,  135. 

Prose.     -See  Poetry. 

Protest  intism,  the  root  of  modern 
i:uroi)eaii  History,  142;  not  dead 
yet.  157:  its  living  fruit,  165,  220. 

I'liigatory,  noble  Catholic  conception 
of,  lOi). 

Puritaniini,  founded  by  Knox,  164; 
true  beginning  of  .America,  1O5;  the 
one  epoch  of  Scotland,  166;  'Iheoc- 
r.acy,  175;  Puritanism  in  England, 
2.K.  237.  2''o. 

(Ju.itkery  origin.ites  nothing,  5,  50; 
age  of,  201  ;  Quacks  and  Dupes,  249. 

Kii!:;nardl:.  44. 

Kefornier,  the  true,  153. 

Religion,  a  man's,  the  chief  fact  with 
regard  to  him,  2;  liased  on  Hero- 
worship,  13;  propagating  by  the 
sword.  69;  cannot  succeed  by  being 
'easy,'  So. 

Revolution,  227;  the  French,  229,  273. 

Ricliter.  1 1. 

Right  and  Wrong.  S7,  in. 

Rousseau,  not  a  strong  man;  hi>  Por- 
trait, egoism.  212:  his  passionate 
ai)p,'als.  21  ( :  his  Urnks.  like  himself, 
uuliealthy  ;  the  Kvangelist  of  the 
I'rench  Revolution.  215. 

Scepticism,  a  spiritual  p.iralysis,  195, 

204,  230. 
Scotland  awakened  into  life  by  Knox, 

I'j'i. 
Secret,  tlie  open,  91. 
Seid.  Mahomet's  slave  and  friend,  60, 

82. 


370 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


Shalupeare  and  the  Elizabethan  Kra, 
11$;  his  all-sufficing  intellect,  ii8, 
lai ;  his  Characters,  lao;  his 
Dramas,  a  part  of  Nature  herself, 
laj ;  hi:;  joyful  tranquillity  and  over- 
flowing love  of  laughter,  124;  his 
hearty  Patriotism,  126;  glimpses  of 
the  world  that  was  in  him,  ia6;  a 
heaven-sent  Light- Uringer,  ij8;  a 
King  of  Saxondom,  130. 

Shekinah,  Man  the  true,  13. 

Silence,  the  great  empire  of,  115, 
257. 

Sincerity,  better  than  gracefulness,  35  ; 
the  first  characteristic  of  heroism 
and  originality,  51,  62,  144, 146, 179. 

Theocracy,  a,  striven  for  by  all  true 

Reformers,  175,  261. 
Thor,  and  his  adventures,  21,  39-44  ; 

his  last  appearance,  45. 


Thought,  miraculous  influence  of,  24, 

33,  189 ;  musical  Thought,  94. 
Thunder.    See  Thor. 
Time,  the  great  mystery  of,  9. 
Tolerance,  true  and  false,  159,  17a. 
Turenne,  90. 

Universities,  185. 

Valour,  the  basis  of  all  virtue,  36,  40 : 
Norse  consecration  of,  46  ;  Christian 
valour,  137. 

Voltaire-worship,  16. 

Wish,  the  Norse  god,  21 ;  enlarged  into 

a  heaven  by  Mahomet,  87. 
Worms,  Luther  at,  1 54. 
Worship,    transcendent    wonder,    11 

See  Hero-worship. 

Zemzem,  the  Sacred  Well,  56. 


INDEX   TO    INTRODUCTION  AND 
NOTES 


Abelard,  345. 

d'Abrantes,  Duchess,  363. 

accomplished  and  distinguished,' 
'the,  365. 

'according   to  God's  own   heart,' 
308. 

'  account '  for  him,  296. 

Account  of  Corsicit,  Koswell's,  357. 

'  a  devout  imagination,'  343. 

a  Dio  spiacenti,  324. 

Ai/onais,  quoted,  301. 

advertisement,  Neptune  in,  306. 

Aegir,  299. 

aer  bruno,  324. 

Aesthttische   Erziehuiig  ties  Men- 
scheii,  quoted,  354. 

A    Few    Wonh   about  the   Eight- 
eenth Century,  347. 

Age  of  Scepticism,  307. 

Aire/  as  a  lecturer,  xiv. 

Alford,  Dean,  xvi. 

Ali,  Mahomet's  vizier,  311. 

Allegory,  294. 

all,  the,  a  trc;.  Ixxvi. 

■  All  was  (Godlike,'  295. 

allusion,  restrained  in  Heroes,  Ixi. 

Almack's,  first  series  of   lectures 
at,  xviii. 

almsgiving,  the  Koran  on,  316. 

alti  guai,  320. 

America,  Carlyle  thinks  of  lectur- 


ing in,  liv,  Iv  ;  project  given 
up,  liv,  Iv. 

American  exaggeration,  304. 

American  spelling,  Iviii. 

Anabaptists,  337. 

Anderson,  bibliography  of  Heroes, 
defective,  Ivi. 

angels,  Juste-mi/ieu,  324. 

anger,  Mahomet's  vein  of,  xxxix. 

An  Inland  Voyage,  363. 

Annan,  Schoolmaster  in,  328. 

Annihilation  of  Self,  310. 

'  another  Isle  of  Oleron,'  364. 

Anstey,  T.  C,  reports  second 
course,  xxv ;  differences  in 
his  reports  and  Hunt's,  xxvi; 
reports  to  be  taken  w'th  cau- 
tion, xxvi  ;  compared  v.ith 
Heroes,    liii. 

'  Apostlehood  '  in  Carlyle's  audi- 
ence, xvi. 

apparitions,  295. 

Appleton's  re])rints.  hi,  Ivii,  Iviii. 

'appointed  patli^,'  513. 

Arabia  first  became  alive.  317. 

Arabians  at  Crenada,  327. 

Arabian  Talts.  Carlyle's  acquaint- 
ance with,  xxxix. 

Arabic,  Carlyle's  desire  to  know, 
xxxix. 

.Archives,  Florence,  319. 


■11 


371 


372 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


Arians,  Carlyle  on,  312. 
aristocracy,  open-minded,  xxviii. 
Arkwright,  lecture  on,  xxix,  xxx. 
Arnold,  CalluUs, quoted,  jaS ;  dis- 
likes    Carlyle's    earnestness, 
Ixxxiv;   Luminary  of  (  arlylc '8 
doctrine,  Ixxxiv ;  quoted,  295. 
Arundel  marble,  301. 
Asen,  AsiaticH,  300. 
'  A8:^uredly,'  315. 
'as  the  uaktree  grows,'  329. 
Atahualpu.  .ncredulity  of,  jo2. 
Athanasian    controversy,   Carlyle 

oii,  3i.«. 
d'Aubignc,  citt-d,  m,  334,  337. 
audience,  ap|)earance  of  Carlyle's, 
xix. 
attitude  of,  Ixxx. 
Carlyle  on  his  fourth,  xxxviii. 
effect  of  Carlyle  on,  xxvii,  1. 
elements  of,  xvi. 
fourth,  nature  of,  xxxvii. 
growth  of,  xxviii,  xxix,  xxxix. 
ideas  of,  Ixxxv,  Ixxxvi. 
sayings  of,  xxxiv. 
second,    i  oUected    easily,    xxi ; 
character  of,  xxii. 
Augereau,  crtiiited  with  mot,  363. 
Augustinian    monks   against    iJo- 

miiiicans,  jj.]. 
Austen,  Jane,  Ixxxvi. 
away  with,  cannot,  331. 

babbling  Avocats.  362. 
Backwoods,  American,  304. 
Balder,  303. 

'ba|)ti-*m  he  was  railed,'  341. 
Barehones  Parliament,  359. 
'Baresark,'   Carlyle's  error  as  to, 
3J5- 


Hathurst,  a  'good  hater,'  329. 

Hayle,  a  Protestant,  xxx. 

Bayle,    Diclionary    cjuoted,     320, 

Beatrice,  Dante's  love  for,  intense. 

xliii. 
Beautiful  higher  than   the  Good, 

318. 
beauty  of  the  harvest-fields,  338. 
Bellarmine.  332. 

Bentham,  denounced  by  Carlyle 
xli. 

Itenliiamee  Utility,  317. 
Benthamism,  spurt  at,  accidental, 

liii. 
lieowulf,  303. 

'  Better  that  women  weep,'  342. 
Bible,  frequent  allusions  to,  Ixi. 
Bible  references : 

Gen.,  360. 

Exod.,  344. 

I  Sam.,  308. 

I  Kings,  310. 

Job,  30S,  309.  3 '0.311. 

Ps..  308. 

Eccl..  329.  331,  357. 

Jer.,  30S,  357. 

•Matt.,  293,  3 IS,  335,  344. 

Luke,  341. 

John,  344. 

Acts,  308,  335. 

Gal.,  310. 

Eph.,  347,  355. 

2  Thess.,  363. 

Kev.,  305. 
bibliography  of  Heroes,  defective, 

Ki. 
liiglim  Pilfers  quoted,  305. 
Birrell,  A.,  348. 


INDEX  TO  JNTRODVCTtOU  AA'D  NOTES         37J 


Birth-hour,  another,  331. 

bits  of  black  wood,  310. 

Black  Stone,  309. 

blazing<up,  364. 

'  blows,  red  beard,'  298. 

blunders,  Carlyle's,  Ixiv,  Ixv. 

Uliithenslaub  of   Novalis  quoted, 

329- 
Boccaccio  on  Dante,  321. 
Bolingbroke  in  Chelsea,  xii. 
Book  of  Snob\  significant,  Ixxxvi. 
bore,  tidal  wave,  299. 
lioswell,  Carlyle's  review  of,  Ixxx. 
Hoswell,  on  Fielding  and  Richard- 
son, 327. 
lioswiU    quoted,    327,    329,    347, 

348.  349.  357- 
Boswell,  remark  on,  xlvi. 
Bourget,  cited,  363. 
Boiirrienne,  Memoirs,  quoted,  361, 

362,  363,  365. 
'  brave  old  Samuel,'  349. 
brewing  ale,  .\orse  gods,  299. 
Britain,  Great,  History  oJ\  360. 
Brooks,      I'hillips,     intluence     of 

Heroes  on,  Ixxxvii. 
brougham,  'fourth  estate,'  346. 
Brown,     IIuniL.    John    Knox,    A 

Bio!;r„pAy,  341,  34 J,  343. 
Browning  at  second  lecture,  xl. 
Browning's,  Mrs.,  opinion  of  Car- 

lyle,  Ixx,  n. 
Browning's  Strafford,  xviii. 
iirunetto  Latini,  320,  522. 
bulletin,  faisity  of  Acre,  361. 
bungler,  344. 
Bunsen,  Life  0/  A'Ubuhr,  quoted, 

354- 
Burke  said,  346. 
Bums,  Carlyle  on,  Ixxx  ;  compared 


with  Scot  I.  Ixxui ;  F.  Harrison 
on,  Ixxxiii;  not  to  think,  353; 
Stewart  on,  352. 

Burns's  family  in  tears,  352. 

Bums's  Schoolmaster,  352. 

'  but  one  Temple,'  296. 

Byron  and  Hunt,  xii. 

Cagliostro,  347. 

Calas,  Voltaire  and,  296. 

camera-oljscura,  301. 

fan  della  Scala,  320. 

<  ant.  349. 

canto  fermo,  321. 

capitals,  u.se  of,  Ixiii. 

'career  of  ambition,'  310. 

'careful  not  to  insinuate,'  302. 

'Carlisle'    for    'Carlyle'   in    the 
Times,  xlii,  xliii. 

Carlyle,  Alexander,  has  furni.shed 
letters,  xxxvi ,  editor  of  his- 
torical sketches,  xlvii. 

Carlyle,  Dr.  John,  translation  of 
Inji-riio,  322,  324. 

Carlyle,  John,  letter  from  Thomas, 

XV,  .XX,  xx.xi.,  xxxvi,  xlviii. 
Carlyle,   Mrs.,  ill  during  lecture.-,, 
xvi. 
tells  of  success  of  first  course, 

XX. 

attended  last  four  lectures,  xx. 

husl)a:urs  pre.seiit  to,  xx. 

on   Carlyle's   second   audience, 
xxiii. 

on  T.  C.  .\nstey,  xxv. 

copying  Anstey's  report,  xxv. 

on  the  effect  of  the  second  lec- 
ture, xxvii. 
on  the  third  course  of  lectures, 
xxxiv. 


m 


LHCTVRES  OJV  f//- ffOKS 


Carlylf,  Mrn,,  notes  f   yal  carriagt . 

XXXV. 

tees  Mrs.  Ktmanl  Irvlnj,'  it  It-c- 

tiire,  XA«\. 
no  reference  to  Herots.,  xxxvni. 
iituileiit  of  Italian,  xhi. 
opinion     .1     fifth     icctun  ,    O// 

//f'/rtvf,  xlvii. 
Carlylc/riiotnas,  moves  to  I  ,<>ii''i>n 

from  t.'raigfiipnttotli  in  i    ;4, 

xi. 
niukt:^  Ikjitiu  in  Clteliiea,  xi. 
hi.s  frieiuls,  xii 

first  worl<  at  «  ht-ync  Row.  xii. 
loses  manusi  ript  of  I  In-  /•////,  // 

Kevolutii'>t,  xii. 
I-iiMisliers    Aiv.x  to  puljliNh    \iii. 
depression,  period  of,  xiii. 
ulofjuenre  of,  xiii,  xii. 
his  K(li!it)ur);h  address,  xiii. 
professorial     positions     applied 

for,  xiii. 
might  have  been  a  great  teacher, 

xiii. 
l)ublication  of  The  J-'n-mh  AVr 

olution,  xiii. 
inviteil  ti' lecture  in  -Ainirica.Niv. 
considers  the  Royal  Instituiiun. 

XV. 

as  an  indep>  ndent  lecturer,  xv. 
his    own   account    of    his   audi- 
ence.  XV. 
remembered    those  who   helped 

him,  XV. 
afraid  of  popul.irify,  xv. 
preparation  for  his  tirst  course, 

xvi. 
extent  f)f  first  course,  xvii. 
difticulties  of,  in  lecturiii.!,',  x\i;i. 
to  lecture  extempore,  x^•iii. 


<  arlyli  ,  Thtima*.,  methodn  of  <>pen. 
ing.  uiK  onventional,  xviii. 
v^ltdi.  t'lry  for  his  mother, xviii. 
puti,  tuality  of,  ensured,  xviii. 
first  lecture  at  Almack'a,  iviii. 
I'    personal  appearance,  xix. 
nci\ou.<incss,  xx,  xxi. 
kind  reception,  xx. 
sijc((  ss  of  first  roune,  xx. 
pi     eii!-,  guinea.*   to   wife    and 

Mrs.  Welsh,  xx. 
pr.  jiaration  for   Hecond  roume 

xxi. 
Ills  opinion  of  his  second  audi 

ence,  xxiii. 
success  of  second  course,  xxiv. 
ottered  a  dinner,  xxiv. 
affects   ludience  to  tears,  xxiv. 
reported  by  Anstey,  xxv. 
lectures  occupied  an  hour,  xxv. 
richer  than  for  ten  years,  xxvi. 
looking  forward  to  third  cours. , 

xxvi. 
manner,  characterizeii  by  Hunt, 

xxvii. 
thought    he   gave  a  stupid  lec 

lure,  xxviii. 
enthu>,i.isn)  amused  by,  xxviii. 
apl)lauileil  ill  speaking  of  Knox. 

xxviii. 
impartiality  of,  xxix. 
signilii  ;int  omissions,  xxix. 
Protestantism  of,  xxx. 
on  French  Revolution,  xxx. 
on  I.uther,  xxx. 
on  Cromwell,  xxx. 
on  the  emigrant  noblesse,  xxxii. 
defens<'    of    Marie    Antoinette, 

xxxii 
hard  on  (iirondist.s,  xxxii. 


iffntix  TO  ff/TNonrcTiox  axd  notks       375 


Carlyle,  Thomas,  defemU  Marai, 
xxxiii. 
does    justice    to     Robespierre, 

xxxili. 
eulogy  of  Danton,  xxxiii. 
praised  by  Hunt,  xxxiii. 
on  hiM  audience,  xxxiv. 
on  his  own  lectures,  xxxiv. 
ride  to  Harrow,  xxxiv 
admitH  his  succes.s  to  l':merson, 

XXXV. 

thinks  of  lecturing  in  America, 

XXXV. 

successi  of  fourth  course,  xxxv. 

opinion  of  lecturing,  xxxv. 

inception  of  Heroes,  xxxvi. 

journal  quoted  on  Heroes,  xxxvi. 

natuif  of  hi.s  manuscript,  xxxvii. 

success  in  fourth  course,  xxxvii. 

describes       fourth       audience, 
xxxviii. 

successful  when  excited,  xxxviii. 

on  Mahomet,  xxxix. 

reads   1-ane's  "Arabian  Tales," 
xxxix. 

pleased    with     second    lecture, 
xxxix. 

views  on  Mahomet,  xl. 

his  view  of  Christianity,  xli. 

interrupted  by  Mill,  xli. 
on  Dante,  xli. 
on  Shaksperc,  xli. 
visited  Stratford-on-Avon,  xlii. 
knowkdRe  of  .Shaksperc,  xlii. 
called  •  Carlisle,'  xlii,  327. 
reported  in  the  Times,  xlii. 
on  the  Commedia,  xliii. 
third  lecture  praised,  xliii. 
repels  Maurice,  xliii. 
reporter's  opinion  of,  xliii. 


<'arlyle,   Thomas,  on    Knox  and 
Luther,  xliv. 
fourth  lecture  good,  xHv. 
destrilied  by  Caroline  Fox,  xlv. 
Scottish  accent  noted,  xlv. 
on  Boswell,  xlvi. 
on  Rousseau,  xlvi. 
"n  Johnson,  xlvi. 
on  Kurns,  xlvi. 

growth  of  opinion  on  Cromwell, 
xlvii. 

special  knowledge  of  Napoleon, 

xlvii. 
first  to  declare  Cromwell  honest, 

xlviii. 
varied  phrases,  xlviii. 
opinion  of  sixth  lecture,  xlviii. 
allusion  to  contemporary  poli- 
tics, xlviii. 
his  audience  .ippreciative,  xlix. 
admits  success  to  himself,  xlix. 
change  of  attitude  to  audience, 

xlix,  1. 
successful  at  last,  I. 
effect  on  audience,  I. 
method  of  lecturing,  li. 
use  of  manuscript,  li,  n. 
re.solves  to  make  Heroes  a  book, 

li. 
his  own  reporter,  lii. 
method  of  writing  out  lectures, 

lii,  liii. 
repetition  of  lectures,  liii. 
retains  impromptus,  liii. 
project  of  lecturing  in  America, 

liv. 
project  given  up,  Iv. 
at  work  on  Cromwell,  Iv,  Ivii. 
makes  Chapman  and    Hall  his 
publishers,  Ivii. 


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376 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


Carlyle,  Thomas,  winding  up  Mrs. 
Welsh's  estate,  Ivii. 
sensitive  to  misprints,  Ivii. 
corrections  in  second  edition  of 

Heroes,  Ivii. 
late  changes  in  text,  Iviii. 
first  opinion  of  Heroes,  lix. 
disparagement  of  his  own  work, 

lix. 
notion  of  style  for,  Ix. 
restraint  of  humor,  Ixi. 

of  metaphor,  Ixi. 
impression  of  his  voice,  Ixii. 
fondness  for  triads,  Ixii. 
for  plurals,  Ixiii. 
for  capitals,  Ixiii. 
for  hyphens,  Ixiii. 
for  the  subjunctive,  Ixiii. 
solidity  of  his  work,  Ixiv. 
blunders  in  Heroes,  Ixiv,  Ixv. 
errors  not  important,  Ixv. 
trusted   too  much   to  memory, 

Ixv. 
style  colloquial,  Ixv. 
sentence  structure  careless,  Ixvi. 
excuse  for  errors,  Ixvii. 
method    contrasted    with    Rus- 

kin's,  Ixvii. 
objections  of  Gosse  and  Traill 

to,  Ixix. 
argument  against  objections,  Ixx. 
action  in  regard  to  burnt  manu- 
script, Ixx. 
varies  meaning  of  heroic,  Ixxi. 
choice  of  heroes  criticised,  Ixxiii. 
possibly  right,  Ixxiii. 
nature  of  his  insight,  Ixxiv. 
view  of  Rousseau,  Ixxiv. 
idea  of  hero  justified,  Ixxv. 
on  sincerity,  Ixxv. 


Cariyle,  Thomas,  sense  of  unreal 
ity,  Ixxvi. 
aim  in  Heroes,  Ixxvii. 
his  reading  of  history,  Ixxviii. 
view  of  heroism,  Ixxviii. 
judgments  approved  by  F.  Har 

rison,  Ixxix. 
work  approved  by  Traill,  Ixxix. 
reversed  popular  verdict  on  Ma 

hornet  md  Cromwell,  Ixxx. 
review     of     Croker's     BoswelL 

Ixxx. 
approved   by   Vigfusson,   Ixxx; 
and  by  .Syed  Ameer  Ali,  Ixxv. 
portrait-painting,  Ixxxi. 
portrayer  of  epochs,  Ixxxi. 
moralist  of  nineteenth  century, 

Ixxxii. 
preacher  of  righteousness,  Ixxxii. 
criticised  adversely  by  Harrison, 

:xxii. 
objections  not  valid,  Ixxxiii. 
alleged  incoherence  of,  Ixxxiv. 
Arnold's  objection  to,  Ixxxiv. 
H.  Martineau  on,  Ixxxiv. 
L.    Stephen    on    his    doctrim, 

Ixxxiv. 
his  pr  .aching  talent,  Ixxxv. 
Goethe's  opinion  of,  Ixxxv. 
repetition  of,  Ixxxv. 
compared  with  Newman,  Ixxxvi 
difficulties  overcome,  Ixxxvi. 
his  final  view  of  Heroes,  Ixxxviii. 
nature  of  his  appeal,  Ixxxviii. 
and  London  Library,  327. 
apology  to  Mill,  347. 
article  on  Xecker  quoted,  357 
compliment  of,  365. 
confuse.'^   I'halaris  and   PeriJlu-. 
347- 


INDEX   TO  INTRODUCTION  AND  NOTES         377 


Carlyle,    Thomas,    corrected     hy 
Times  reporter,  327. 
dictum,    omitted    from    JAroes, 

350. 
error  as  to  '  Baresark,'  355. 
error  as  to  Hegira,  312. 
error  regarding  Luther,  339. 
errors  of,  319.  322,  323,  324, 325, 

345.  347- 

inaccuracy  of,  304, 305, 335,  336, 

341. 
in  Luther's  room,  337. 
misquotation  of  Job,  308. 
moderation  of,  334,  355. 
on  the  Arians,  312. 
quotation  from  himself,  306, 318, 

346,  348. 
studying  Italian,  325. 
works  quoted  or  cited : 
Chartism,  347. 

Cromwell,  Letters  and  Speeches, 

340,  3SS^  356,  358.  359.  360. 
E.Corr.,    328,   331,    336,    345, 

347- 
E.-Lett.,  350,  363. 
Essays  : 

Appendix,  353. 

Boswell  's    Life    of  Johnson, 

293.318.346,348.349.353. 

357- 
Burns,  307,  318,  319,  327,  352, 

353- 
Characteristics,  300,  311,  331, 

343.  348. 
Count  Cagliostro,  207,  347. 
Diamond  Necklace,  354. 
Diderot,  344,  346. 
Goethe,   3c5,    312,    3r7,    344, 

349- 
Goethe's  Death,  ^ij. 


Carlyle,  Thomas,  Assiiys: 

(j'oct/ie's  irorks,  Ixxi,  293,  296, 

3'9.  337.  344- 
/can  P,iul  Fricdtich  A'ichter, 

=95.  296,  3 '7.  327.  337.  346, 
349- 
/can  Pr.ul  Friedrich   Richter 

Again,  295,  327. 
Life  and  Writings  of  Werner, 

306,  317. 
Z«M^r'j />.„//«,  335,  336,  337. 
Mirahcau,  307,  320,  324,  348, 

352- 
NiK.alis,   296,  301,   311,    3,9, 

329- 
On  History,  293. 
Schiller,  349. 
Signs  of  the  Times,  296,  300, 

345.  346. 
State   of  German    Literature, 
V7^l^'^^Zl^,lM,  346,  354. 
Taylor  's   Surrey   of  German 

Literature,  334,  354,  356. 
Voltaire,  296,  297,  ^09,  364. 
French    RcTolution,     The,    296, 

2W,  352,  354.  359.  362. 
Historical  Sketches,  340,  358. 
History  of  Friedrich  II,  ^i. 
Lectwes    on    Literature   {L.L.), 
293.  294,  306,  308,  31S,  3r9, 
320,  321,  322,  324,  325.  326, 
328,  329,  330,  332,  233,  334. 
335'  337.  339.  340,  341,  342, 
3  7,  36'.  365- 
Life  of  Sterling,  332. 
Meister's    Apprenticeship,    329, 

354.  356- 
Meister's  Travels,  t^i-J. 
Mcnta.gne  and  other  Essays,  299, 
358- 


378 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


Carlyle,  Thomas,  Essays : 
Noz'alis,  296. 
Reminiscences,  300. 
Sartor  Resartus,  295,  296,  300, 
Z^''  303.  305.  3'o,  311,  318, 
332.  346,  347- 
Carlyle'.s  chairman,  xviii. 
Carlyles'  Chelsea  Home,  The,  337. 
Carlylean  doctrine,  summarized  by 
Arnold,     Ixxxiv;     and     by 
Stephen,  Ixxxiv. 
cassock,  Luther's  recommendation 

regarding,  336. 
Catinat,  de.  Marshal,  349. 
Cato  and  his  statue,  357. 
Cavalcante  falls,  323. 
Cecilia,  344. 
Celia,  344. 

'  certain  genealogy,'  294. 
Cestus  of  Venus,  302. 
Chalmers  as  a  lecturer,  xiv. 

phrase  of,  300. 
Chaos,  umpire,  346. 
Charles  I,  Carlyle  on,  xxviii. 
Chartism,  in  Carlyle's  time,  Ixxxv, 

347- 
Chartisms,  347. 
chasuble  and  cassock,  confused  by 

Carlyle,  336. 
Chaucer,  Emerson's  error  regard- 
ing, Ixxix. 
Chelsea,  literary  associations  of, 

xii. 
Cheyne  Row,  views  from,  xii. 
Chinese  methods,  346. 
Choice  of  Books,  The,  347. 
Choosers  of  the  Slain,  302. 
Chosroes,  310. 

Christianity,  Carlyle  on,  312. 
Church,  changed,  345. 


Church  Liturgy,  346. 
Cincinnati  imprint  of  Heroes,  Ivii 
Clarendon,   on  Harebones  I'arli.i 

ment,  359,  364. 
'  Clear  your  mind  of  cant,'  349. 
Clifford,  345. 
Coffee-house    in    Chelsea    visitei 

by  Bickerstaff,  xii. 
Coleridge,  as  a  lecturer,  xiv. 
dies  in  year  of  Cariyle's  Ilegira 

xi. 
discursiveness  of,  xvii. 
on  Luther's  ink-bottle,  337. 
on  the  Encyclopedie  j6o. 
quoted,  342. 
remark  of,  357. 
collocations  awkward,  Ixvi. 
Colloquia    Meusalia    quoted,    ly^, 

339- 
colloquial,  Carlyle's  style,  Ixv. 
'colours,  cut-glass.'  -■■ 
'  combing  their  mane-^,'  298. 
Comedy,  The,  of  Dante  Alighi.i  1. 
322. 
Ruskin  on,  321. 
Comtis  quoted,  340. 
Concordat,  effect  of,  363. 
Confessions,  Carlyle  on  Rousseau'^, 

xlvi. 
Consecration  of  Valour,  306. 
'  Consider  the  lilies,'  31 8. 
Constance,  Council  of,  335. 
constitution,  the  French,  xxxi. 
conversion  of  the  .Saxons,  31::. 
convex-concave  mirror,  327. 
Convocation  of  the  Xotahles,  :; ;  1. 
Conway  on  Carlyle's  use  of  ni:i:iii 

script,  li,  n. 
'Co])rostonios,'a  naniefor  Carly  ■. 
3'9- 


jHr 


INDEX   TO  INTRODUCTION  AND  NOTES  37') 


corbels,  bent  like,  326. 

Cornuel,  de,  Mde.,  349. 

Corpus    Poeticum    Boreale    cited, 

298.  299,  300,  303,  304. 
Corsica  Boswell,  356. 
Corsican  lieutenant,  319. 
Councils  of  Tre])isond,  300. 
Count  Fathom,  written  in  Chelsea, 

xii. 
Courvoisier  murder,  xxxviii. 
Cow  Adumbla,  303. 
'  crackling  of  thorns,'  329. 
Craigenputtoch,  Carlyle,  six  years 

at,  xi. 
creation,  Norse,  299. 
Cromwell,  Carlyle  on,  xxvii,  xxx. 

Carlyle's  rehabilitation  of,  xlvii, 
xlviii,  xlix. 

chosen  as  subject,  xxxvi. 

commantler-in-chief,  359. 

concluding  speech,  359. 

confusion  of  speech,  361. 

dissolves  parliament,  359. 

ever-calculating  hypocrite,  356. 

ftt.icies  about,  355. 

Hume  on,  35S. 

inauguration,  364. 

last  words,  358. 

Milton  on.  359. 

mother,  3{)0. 

opinion  of,  reversed,  Ixxx. 

passage  in  Heroes  much  revised, 

s        J  regarding  King  Charles, 

356. 
crowning  mercy,  355. 
Crozier,  J.  H.,  cited,  xix,  n. 
culture,     value     of     history     in, 

Ixxviii. 
cynosure  of  all  eyes,  353. 


d'Abrantes,  Duchess,  cited,  iG^. 
Dante,    C-irlyle's    knowledge    of, 
xlii. 

Carlyle's  service  to,  Ixxx. 

Carlyle's  study  of,  xxi. 

'goes  through  hell,"  321. 

epitaph  in  full,  321. 

historian  of  the  spiritual  worlil 
xliii. 

uses  of,  327. 
Danton,  xxxii,  xxxiii. 
D'Aubigne,  cited,  m,  334,  337. 
de  (Irammont  in  Chelsea,  xii. 
delineation,  musical,  318. 
'delivering  Calases,'  296. 
'  della  bella  persona,'  324. 
Delmas,   credited  with  mot,  363. 
Denison,  Mrs.,  at  lectures  On  He- 
roes, xl. 
De  Quincey,  quoted,  329. 

witness  of  Coleridge's  success, 
xiv. 
Der  Afythus  von    Thor,  2'/.,  299, 

304- 
Desmoulins,  Camillf,  354. 
De  Stael,  on  the  Concordat,  363. 
De  Vere,  T.iilnes  to,  xxiii. 
Devil,  'the,  is  aware,'  337. 
Devils,  at  Worms,  335. 
Devils,  '  the,  fled,'  339. 
'  dew-drops  from  his  mane,'  352. 
Dickens,  Ixxxvi. 

Carlyle's  portrait  of,  Ixxxi. 
Diocletian,  planting  cabbages,  358. 
Diodorus  Siculus,  309. 
'discrepancies  of  national  taste,' 

3'2- 
discursiveness  of  lecturing,  xvii. 
Divine  Idea,  318. 
Doctrine  of  Motives,  347. 


380 


LECTUA'ES  OAT  /lEROES 


Dominies,  wild  Saint,  331. 
Douanier  and  Voltaire,  296. 
•doubt,'  a  Scf^tticism,  xlviii,  332. 
Du    Bois,    Cardinal,   Carlyle   on, 

xxix. 
Duke   George,   Luther's   defiance 

of,  32,^. 
Duke  of  Weimar,  364. 
dumb  Prophet,  361. 
Dunce,  not  a,  328. 
'  duty  of  staying  at  home,'  347. 

Eager,  299. 
ears  cropt-off,  358. 
ears  of  the  pot,  299. 
earth  steadied  by  mountains,  3r3. 
Eastlake,  Lady,  on  Carlyle's  per- 
sonal appearance,  xix. 
Memoirs  of,  cited,  xix,  n. 
Eck,  Johann,  332. 
Edda,  account  of,  297. 
'  Edda,'  fanciful    etymologies   of, 

297. 
Edda,  Prose,  cited,  297,  302,  303, 

304.  305- 
Edda,    i>ryms^vifiu,   quoted,    298, 
299. 
Hymiskvi^a,  quoted,  299. 
Educational  Province,  316. 
egotism  of  Carlyle,  Ixix. 
Eighteenth  Century,  A  Few  Words 

abottt  the,  347. 
Eisenach,  Carlyle  at,  337. 
Eliot,  Sir  John,  355. 
Elliott,  F.,  XV. 
Elster-Gate,  Luther  at,  335. 
Emerson,  invites  Carlyle  to  lecture 
in  America,  xiv. 
as  a  lecturer,  xiv. 
Carlyle  at  his  lecture,  xiv. 


Emerson,  letter  of  Carlyle  to,  xxxv 
told  subject  of  fourth   courst 
xxxvi. 

completion  of  Heroes  announcet 

to,  liv. 
kindness  to  Carlyle,  Iv. 
tells  of  piracy,  Ivi. 

asks  fortranscript  of  manuscript 
Ivi. 

curious  error  of,  Ixxix. 
philosophy    based    on    Heroes, 

Ixxxvii. 
on  Napoleon,  361. 
quoted,  327,  329,  345. 
Entile,  cited,  351. 
Encyclo/i^die,  history  of,  360. 
England,  in  1840,  Ixxxv,  Ixxxvi. 
English  Fairy-  Tales,  304. 
English    society    before    Carlyle, 

Ixxxiv. 
Epistola    Obscurorum     Virorum. 

332- 
Erasmus  in  Chelsea,  xii. 
Eremites,  331. 

Essay  on  Criticism,  quoted,  312. 
Essay  on  Man,  quoted,  310. 
'Ever  in  .  .  .  eye,' 355. 
exaggeration,  American,  304. 
Examiner,       the,      on      Carlyle's 
second  audience,  xxii. 
reports      Courvoisier     murder. 

xxxviii. 
reports    of    Carlyle's    lecturfs. 
xxix,  XXX,  xxxi,  xxxii,  xxxiii 
excuse  for  Carlyle's  errors,  Ixvii. 

factor's  letters  to  Burns's  familv 

352- 
Faerie  Queene,  332. 
False  as  a  bulletin,  361. 


INDEX   TO   lyTKO/yUCTtON  AND  NOTES  381 


Familiar  Studiesof  Men  and  Books, 

343- 

'  Fancy  of  Plato's,"  294. 

Faraday,  as  a  lecturer,  xiv. 

Farinata  rises,  323. 

Faust,  cited,  310. 

Fichte,  quoted,  31S,  343,  344. 

Fielding   and    kicliardson,    com- 
pared by  Johnson,  327. 

fiery  snow,  322. 

fire-worship,  legend  exploded,  298. 

first  course  of  lectures,  receipts, 

XX. 

FitzGerald,  Edward,  xvi. 
•flights  of  clouds.'  338. 
'  fond  gaillard,'  352. 
Fontenelle,  saying  of,  356. 
•  For  ail  our  fighting,'  356. 
'  Force  which  is  not  wo,'  295. 
'  Four-pence-halfpenny  a  day,'  348. 
Fox,  Caroline,  Sterling  and,  xxiv. 

description  of,  xliv. 

her  world  contrasted  with  Lon- 
don, xliv. 

friend  of  Sterling,  xliv. 

admirer  of  Carlyle,  xliv. 

reads  Chartism,  xlv. 

report  of  fifth  lecture,  xlv,  xlvi. 

describes  Carlyle,  xlv. 

penetration  of,  .\lv. 

notes  Carlyle's  phrases,  xlvi. 

report  of  sixth  lecture,  xlvii. 

accuracy  of  reports,  xlviii. 

evidence    of,   as   to   omissions, 
liv. 

on  Lecture  V,  353. 

on  end  of  Lecture  VL  365. 

Her  Journals,  343,  345,  349,  350. 
France  needed  Danton,  xxxiii. 
Fraticescu  da  Rimini,  323. 


Eraser  article,  first  draft  of  Sartor, 

Ixxi. 
Fraser,  publishes  Iteroet,  Iv. 

death  of,  Ivii. 
Freemason's  Tavern,  327. 
French  Revolution,  bad  lecture  on, 
xxxiv. 
Carlyle  on,  xxx,  xxxi. 
Carlyle's  knowledge  of,  xlvii. 
like  the  Knglish,  xxxii. 
Ennch  Rnolution,  The,  written  at 
Cheyne  Row,  xii. 
first  manuscript  burnt,  xii. 
published  in  1837,  xiii. 
Carlyle     corrects     proofs     of, 

xvi. 
success  of,  XX. 
Carlyle  as  graphic  as,  xxiii. 
loss   of   manuscript    of,    shows 

Carlyle's  heroism,  Ixx. 
tjuoted,  299. 
Friediich  the  \Vi.se,  333. 
Friend,  The,  quoted,  360. 
Frith,  C.    H.,  editor  of  Hutchin- 
son Memoirs,  360. 
on  Cromwell,  355. 
P'rost,  Chartist  leader,  347. 
Kroude,  at  Emerson's  lecture,  xiv. 
indicates   Carlyle's  preparation 

for  Heroes,  xxxvi. 
nature  of  his  biography,  Ixix. 
Carlyle's  Life  in  LoMdon(C.L.L.). 
309.  3 '2.  347.  351- 

Gardiner,  Great  ^ivil  War,  cited, 

356. 
Garnett,   authoi   y  foj    anecdote, 

xii. 
Thomas  Carlyle,  quoted,  317. 
Geddes,  Jenny,  340. 


I 


382 


LKCTURKS  ON  HEROKS 


de  Genlw,  Mde.,  and   Rousseau, 

350  f- 
genuine  set  of  fighters.  356. 
German,  Critics,  ji8. 
general  ignorance  of,  xvii. 
literature,  Carlyle's  proficiency 
in,  xvii. 

Gibbon,   mourning  over   Necker, 
357- 
on  Diocletian,  358. 
used  by  Carlyle,  xxxix. 
Decline  and  Fall,  quoted,  307, 

309.  3'3.  315- 
cited,  ^09,  312,  J 1 6. 
Memoirs,  quoted,  357. 
"  Giovanna."  "  tell  my,"  326. 
Girondism,  subject  of  lecture,  xxx, 

xxxi. 
Girondists,  Carlyle  on,  xxxii. 
'  given  up  to  a  strong  delusion,'363. 
'glorious  Revolution,'  340. 
God  and  the  Bible,  quoted,  295. 
•God  be  judge,"  359. 
Godwin,  diligent,  359. 
Goethe,    compared    with     Scott, 
Ixxiii. 
his  language,  344. 
on  Carlyle's  moral  force,  Ixxxv. 
on  Hamlet,  329. 
on  Shakspere,  327. 
opinion  of  Carlylt's  knowledge 

of  German,  xvii. 
recognition  of,  little,  344. 
Wilhelm    MtisUr's  Apprentice- 
ship, 329. 
Golden  Legend,  The,  345. 
Gollancz,  I.,  304. 
'good  hater,'  329. 
Gosse,  failure  to  explain,  xxxvi. 
objections  to  fferoes,  Ixix. 


Gosse,  success  of  I/erocs,  according 
to,  Ixxvii. 

grammar,  Carlyle's  liberties  with, 

Ixv,  Ixvi. 
grapeshot,  Annandale,  xl. 
Gray's  fragments,  303. 
'greatest  of  all,' 296. 
Greatness  of  Great  Men,  On  the. 

Ixxi. 
Greek  religion,  Carlyle  on,  xxvi. 
Green,  Short  I/istory  0/  the  ling. 

lish  People,  cited,  356. 
Greene,  Professor,  editor  of  Car- 
lyle's lectures,  xxiv. 
quoted,  306. 
Grimm,  erroneous  etymology,  300 
305- 
Teutonic   Mythology,    298,    3,^^,, 
300,  302,  305. 
Grotius.  Dc  Vent.  Relig.  Christ., 

quoted,  307. 
Grove,  Dictionary  0/ Music,  quoted, 

32'- 
grudges  all  removed,  y(^. 
G  uizot.  History  of  France, <i\\.KA,i '  - 


Half-and-half.  340. 

Hallam  and  first  audience,  xvi. 

Hamlet,  304. 

Ilamht,  (Joethe  on,  329. 

//it  III  let  ill  /cclaiut,  304. 

'//amlit\n  Wilhelm  Meister,'  y.,^ 

Hampton-Court  negotiation;,  35V 

Hardenberg,  F.  von  (Xovalis),  ji  i. 

Harper's  Monthly  Magazine  cited, 

356. 
Harrison,     Frederic,     opinion     of 
Heroes,  Ixxviii,  Ixxxiii. 
endorses  judgments  in  //eroes, 
Ixxix. 


ixnt-x  ro  tXTKODcrriox  .:x/>  \„r/:s 


3S,J 


Harrison,  Frederic,  opinion  of  r/ie 
Frtnch  Revolution,  Ixxxiii. 
objections  to  /hroes,  Ixxxiii. 
modest     refutation     of     them, 

Ixxxiii. 
curious  error  of,  Ixxxiv,  n. 
cited,  347. 

on  Cromwell,  cited,  355. 
Harrow,  Carlyle's  ride  to,  xxxiv. 
hater,  a  good,  329. 
Hazlitt  as  a  lecturer,  xiv. 
'Heaven  with  its  stars,'  30S. 
Hegira,  311. 

Carlyle's  error  regarding,  312. 
Heimskrini^la,  300,  302,  303,  305. 
'  he  is  resigned,'  338. 
'he  will  never  part,'  324. 
'  Hell  will  he  hotter,'  315. 
Heraclius,  310. 
I/ermils,  The,  331. 
Hermoder,  303. 
hero,  defined  hy  Hume,  Ixxi. 
Carlyle's     definition     justified, 

Ixxlv,  Ixxv. 
Men'  'j,'ft's  definition.  Ixxiv. 
I  Ixxv. 

jn  of,  Ixxii. 

,49- 
iverse,  307. 
inception  of,  xxxvi. 
first  subjects  chosen,  xxxvi. 
relation    of    lectures    to   book, 

xxxvi,  XXX vii. 
C'arlyle's  description  of  writing-, 

xxxvii. 
first  lecture  not  the  best,  x.vxviii, 
Carlyle  pleased  with  second  lec- 
ture, xxxix. 
Macready's   opinion   of  second 
lecture,  xl. 


of 

r 

fc      • 
he  10^ 
Ilirocs, 


//</<vf,  phra.s>.soniitl.  (I  from,  xlvi. 
agreement  betw.en  lectures  and 

book,  xlvi,  liv. 
difference,  1,  lii. 

reported    partly  by   Fra.ser  em- 
ployee, li. 
to  be  nuiile  into  a  book.  ft. 
evidence  of  title-page,  lii. 
sources  of,  Ijii. 
reasons  for  emendations,  liii. 
much  exp.-jn(led,  liii. 
each  lecture  longer  than  those 

of  iSjS.  liii. 
1S40,  tiiL-  year  of,  liv. 
process  of  composition,  liv. 
compluteil.  liv, 
booksellers'  oiter,  Iv. 
first  edition,  icoo  <  opios,  Iv. 
payment  for.  I  v. 
sheets  sent  to  .America,  hi. 
pirated  in  .Ww  N'ork,  hi. 
printed    in     .New     N  ork    ncvvs- 

paper>,  hi. 
bibliography  (,f,  obx  urc,  hi. 
different  edition-,  of.  Mi. 
first  American  edition  dLs(  ribt-d 
Ivii. 

second  I-:n,t.;li-li  edition,  jvii. 
changes  in,  hii  and  n. 
rcvisi.iii  c,f  one  pas^ag,'.  hii. 
second  .\nierican  ediiion.  hiii. 
third  ,\meriean  edition,. so-calkr!, 
hiii. 

third  i:n,;;li>li  cciiiion,  hiii. 
later  <  lianges  in  text,  hiii. 
third  .American  edition,  hiii. 
first  .American  printir^  of,  hiii,n 
later  KiiRli^h  editions,  lix. 
rapidity  of  >ale,  lix. 
many  editions  not  noted,  lix. 


384 


LECT'/KES  OAT  IlKKOES 


iltrots,  farlyle's  first  opinion  of, 
lix. 

•tyle  low-pitched,  Ix. 

usual  Ntyk,  modified  for,  Ix. 

earnest  tone  of  Ix,  Ixi. 

humor  of,  restrained,  Ixi. 

met^hor     and     allusion     re- 
strained, Ixi. 

impression  of  voice,  Ixi. 

popularity  accounted  for,  IxlL 

triads  in,  Ixii,  Ixiii.  *'^ 

capitals  in,  Ixiii. 

hyphenation  in,  Ixiii. 
plurals  in,  Ixiii. 
almost  flimsy  in  texture,  Ixiv. 
faults  of,  l^v. 
style  colloquial,  Ixv. 
errors  in  grammar,  Ixv. 
awkward  collocations  in,  Ixvi. 
sentence-structure  careless,  Ixvi. 
errors  of,  excused,  Ixvii. 
plan  simple,  Ixvii. 

classification     not     exhaustive, 
Ixviii. 

descending  scale  in,  Ixviii. 
plan  of  each  lecture.  Ixviii,  ixix. 
critical  objections  to,  Ixix. 
Traill's    admissions    regarding, 

Ixx,  Ixxix. 
theory  of,  simple,  Ix^j. 
main  idea  in  Hume,  Ixxi. 
offshoot    of     Teufelsdrockhian 

philosophy,  Ixxi. 
early  statement  of  main  ideas  in, 

jxxii. 
novelty  of  Carlyle's   theory  in, 

Ixxii. 
meanTng  of    'hero'   varied   in, 

Ixxiii. 
should  include  Scott,  Ixxiii. 


/ftroes,  insight  shown  in,  Ixxiv. 
secondary  ideas  in,  Ixxv. 
first  intention  lost,  Ixxvii. 
success  of,  Ixxvii. 
ethical  appeal  of,  Ixxvii. 
aim  of    "marrow  of  hLtory, 
Ixxvii. 

critici-sed  by  F.  Harrison,  Ixxviii. 
theory  of  hero-worship  not  es- 
sential to,  Ixxviii. 
judgments   of,  endorsed  by  I-. 

Harrison,  Ixxviii. 
Introduction  to  history,  Ixxviii. 
purple  passages  in,  Ixxix. 
heroes  of,  in  new  light,  Ixxx. 
regarded  as  a  portrait  gallery. 

Ixxxi. 
what  it  is  not,  Ixxxi 
stimulus  of,  Ixxxii. 
central    doctrine    may  be    dis 

carded,  Ixxxii. 
and  Kepresentative  Mtn,  Ixxxii 
surcharged  with  emotion,  ixx.xii. 
threefold  aspect  of,  ixxxii. 
ethical  value  of,  Ixxxii. 
Harrison'    <,;  '    "•ons  to,  Ixxxiii. 
ethic  of,  i  ;,\x\. 

inflm  n«:e  of,  in  geneml,  Ixx.wii 
on  Kuskin.Ixxxvii;  onl'hilliji^ 
lirooks,  Ixxxvii. 
popularity  of,  Ixxxvii. 
brief  history  of,  Ixxxviii. 
Carlyle's     final      opinion      ..f. 

jxxxviii. 
Centenary  edition,  307. 
heroic,  ancient  man,  Goethe,  31? 

sixfold  classification  of,  Ixxi. 
heroism,  Carlyle's  want  of,  obj.( 
tions  met,  Ixx. 
the  nuriow  of  history,  Ixxviii. 


tNDKX    TO  L\r/Ci>.'lX770A'  AM)   SO n-.S  Js.S 


hero-worship,  detintil,  Ixxi. 

anticipated,  l.xxiL 

nt'vtr  ceases,  xxxvi,  Ixxii,  Ixxvi. 

proved  by  parliculars,  Ixvvi.  ' 

modern  instunns,  Ixwi, 

Carlyleuri  doctrini'  <>f,  misuiukr- 
stood,  Ixxvii. 

may  l)c-  discarded  from  If,  roes, 
Ixxxii. 

littledinct  exhortation  to,  Ixxxii. 

used  liy  lliinn-,  29J. 

reference  to,  lijCi. 
*  Ilic  cluudor  Mantes,'  j2t. 
High  Churrh,  tumult  in.  3(0. 
High  I)uche>SLs,  jiy. 
'his  solitary  I'atmos,'  ;,;,S. 
J/istoii,  ,/,;  A,', J  .]/,,,,,,„,   .  ;fj,s 
history,    /Ahhs,   an    introiiui  timi 
to,  Ixxix. 

marrow  of,  Ixxvii 

value  of.  Ixxviii. 

verdicts  of,  re'  t-rscd,  'wx. 
History     of      Literature,     s< .  ond 

course,  xxi. 
'  His  writiuKs.'  JJ5. 
Hodman,  j  1 1. 

Holland,  lady,  potn.iit  of,  l\\\i. 
Holland,  Lord,  portrait  '  i.  Ixxvi 
Holy  Alliance,  referenii-  to,  319. 
Homoiousion,  312. 
Hoogstrateii.  ;^^2. 
Horace,  f|uotL(l,  303,  3^0. 
horse-shoe  vrin,  Malionitt's,  309. 
house,  Carlyli-'s.  interest  in,  xi. 
Hud,  the  pnjphet,  313. 
Hugo's  CrcmivfU  c'Uijd,  35' 
Hume,  352. 
definitK  n  of  hero,  Ixxi. 
influenre  of  his  phrase,  Ixxxvii, 
on  Cromwell,  358. 


Hume  (juoie<l.  j-i; 

llisloiy  i'f  Ihttit  Unlatii  cited, 

J55.  i'-y- 
humor,  rt>iraii\i  li  in  //,;<',   ,  Ixi. 
Miiiil,  l.iigli,  neighbor  ot  t'arljV, 

in  '  liL-lst.i,  xii. 
fiiend  of  liyron,  xii. 
I.impoonir  of  the  Regent,  xii. 
origin.d  Harold  Skimptjle,  xii. 
hero  of  /,«*/»'  KituJ  Mc,  xii. 
on    (  atlyle's    second    audience, 

xxii. 
his  URihoil  of  rejjorting.  xxiv. 
latf    f.  r    lir-t    lecture    of    third 

•  our^i ,  \\\ii. 
nolii'-  I  .irlylu's  manner,  xxvii. 
.1  syinpitiulic  listener,  xxvii. 
argiie>     a-ainst     third    lecture. 

xxwii. 
(|ualifii  -, (li-,appro\ al. xxviii. xxix. 
impressions  of  \  arlyle's  I'uritan- 

i-m,  xxix. 
<|uotations    from    Carlyle's    lec- 

I  >iri.--,  xxix. 
(li  fi  lids  \'oliaire  a,i;ainst  (  arlylc, 

xxix. 
til  fi-iuU  thi'  (orondists.  xxxii. 
di-, Ibices  with  ('atlylc,  xxxiii. 
eulogy  of  ('arlyie,  xxxiii. 
no    ri  port     of     fourth    course, 

xxxvii. 
judgment  of  (arlyie,  Ixx,  n. 

''"^'*-  .v>l.  3.55- 

Hutc  hinson,  <  ol..  3^x3. 

Huxley,    lei  lures    compared    with 

'  arlyle's,  xvii. 
Hymir,  rigS, 
Hyndt  Ktin,  30). 
hypbtraii-ii!.    v.'urlyle's    fondness 

for,  Ixiii. 


I 


.w, 


/.AC/t'A'AS  O.V  ///Ao£S 


icIialN,  liiKlish.  limitBil,  Ixxxvi. 

'  If  the  Kinx,"  )56. 

'If  thf  Sun,"  jii. 

'If  thiiifjc  Mam,*  jio. 

•  If  ihou  fo||„w  thy  star,'  jjo. 

Igdusil.  .'yy,  J..;. 

'  Image  of  his  own  Drtam,'  301. 
'  I  might  havf  my  han<l.'  j^r.. 
•inarticulate  Hible.'  history.  Uxxii. 
i ncohere nee,  t  arlyk's  alleged, 

Uxxiii,  Ixxxiv. 
'incredulity  of  Atahmilpa,'  302. 
In/trno,  cited  or  (juoted,  jjo,  J2i, 
3-3.  J24.JJ I. 
Carlyle'.H     opinion      regarding, 
325- 
'infinite  conjugation,'  2(y.y. 
infinitude,  iritics  on,  ji8. 
insight,  Carlyle's,  Ixxiv. 
inspiration  of  the  Almighty,  311. 
intensity  of  Dante,  xlii,  xliii. 
'internal  meaning,'  356. 
involuntary  monastic  order,  3jC). 
Irving's  library,  Carlyle's   use  of. 

xxxix. 
Irving,  Mrs.,  at  lecture,  xxxv. 
Islam,  meaning,  3ro. 
'  Is  not  Melitf,'  311. 
Italian,  Carlyle  student  of,  xlii. 
'  It  is  a  hand,*  346. 
'  It  is  certain,'  311. 

Jack  the  (;iant-killer,  304. 

jean  I'aul.  293. 

Jeffrey,  review  of  mi  helm  AiaxUr, 

3'2- 
Jinny  Kissed  Me,  xii. 
Jerome,  334. 

Jesus,  Carlyle'.s  references  to,  332. 
Jewsbury,  Miss,  reference  to,  351. 


John   hmx   ,n,J  !„■.    A'tl„t,oH<  1., 

Ifom.M,  34J. 
John*on.  Samuel,  compartU  with 

Scott,  Ixxiii. 

comparing    kichardson    and 
Fielding,  327. 

contra.stid  with  Carlyle,  34S. 

dining  for  cightpence,  34.S. 

his  prayer,  349. 

on  cant,  349, 

on  kanelagh,  347. 
/■'///'/,  etynjology  of,  304. 
Julius  Citsitr,  297,  350. 
juryman,  Carlyle*s,  Ixxxi. 

Karl.stadt*s  image-breaking,  337. 

Keblah,  309. 

i  Kempis  quoted.  316. 

/■/'V  ///<<-«',  /,;,,/  /,'„///,.,  J03. 

Kinglake,  xvi. 

Kingsley,  Ixxxvi,  33t. 

•AV//;'x*  JW.nuries  contrasted  with 
llerihs,  Ixviii. 

Kittredgt,    O/wj-,    A-nowl,,/j;r  -y 

OIJ  t\'i>rst\   503. 
KUiihr,  J),e,  <  arlyle'.s  fjuotations 

from,  l.xxi. 
Knight,  1:.  !•.,  (juoted,  294. 
Ktuxkiui;  ,tt  tlie  date  in  A/,u/>,t/i 

quoted,  32'^. 
Know  the  men,  ^iG. 
Knox,    John,   a   favorite   subject 
xiiv. 

a  galley  slave.  341. 

and  Queen  Mary.  342. 

at  .St.  Andrew's  castle,  340. 

'burst  into  tears,'  341. 

Carlyle's  appreciation  of,  Ixxx. 

Carlyh's  opinion  of,  339. 

comforts  fellow-prisoners,  341. 


M7J/.V  TO  is'ri<oi)rcnox  a, so  xoteh 


i87 


F.nglish  apprt- ( iate,  \\s\\\ 
culoKy  on,  liy  Murtun,  5.41 
Knox,  John.  •  faces  that  loved  nim,' 

his  hi-ttory,  j,|j. 

hi.H  partinRsign,  jij. 

■hot  at.  J40. 

Workf  qu.ited,  3,4?,  342,  343. 
Kon-ning,  (arlyli '»  tiymolo^y  of. 

296. 
Koran,  the,  a  mirade.  jij. 

allu.Hion  to  prtai  hing,  31  ;,  j6i. 

•Assuredly'  in,  315. 

•cattle,  credit."  313. 

clouds,  reviving  earth,  313. 

highc-i  joys,  spiritual,  316. 

on  almsgiving,  316. 

on  grudges,  3i^>. 

on  revenge.  315. 

on  salutation  of  [K-acc,  316. 

Paradise  and  Hell,  316. 

'tall  leafy  palm  trees.'  313. 

'revive  a  dead  earth,'  313. 

'shaped  you,'  314. 

ships  in,  314. 

'  V'e  have  compassion,'  314. 

written    on    shoulder  blades   of 
mutton,  313. 
KonjH  (juoted  or  cited,  309,  31;, 

3'.)'  !M.  ,115.  Ji'''.  l\l. 
Koran,  J'tt-lini.  />iuoursi-,  quoted, 

30S,  316. 
Kfistlin,  IJ/e  of  Luther,  ht,. 

•  La  carriere  ouverte,'  361. 
ladies  at  Tarlylc's  lectures,  xlii. 

taking  notes  at,  xxiv. 
lady's  song  in  Com  us,  340. 
La  Fere,  retjiment,  363. 
V Allegro  cited,  353. 


lamcnn.iis.    ei,  .r    of,    rtgurdinR 

Dante,  3:1. 
I  ancl'uole.  Stanley,  .  iled,  31  5. 
I.angliort'i's  I'luiaidi,  -jo.  ',57. 
I.angu.ige.  .\d.iin  Smitli  on,  301. 
Lansdowne,  Man  loness  of,  xv. 
lardnef,    ll.iutlhoi'k    ,</    X.i'ur.tl 

I'hih'U'fhy,  (juoled,  301. 
las  Cases  (pioted,  ^i<\  361,  362. 

3'^>l.  )^'5' 

laud  dedii  ating  church,  355 

/..////  l\-neri\,  319, 

leading,  fruit  «>f,  331. 

I.tilurii  mi  til,-  Uislcry  0/  I.itfra- 
lure,  pul)li>he(l  in  part  liy 
I'rofessor  l>o\vden,  xxiv,  n. 
used  in  /A  >o,s,  liii. 
cited  or  ijuoted,  393.  21)4.  506, 
31S.  319,  3J0.  5JI,  ^22,  J23, 
.5-4.  ,525,    5j6,    3j8.  32.>   350, 

n^'  J3J.  334. 335.  iifi^  3  i7. 

340.  341.  34-^  347.  36'.  3''5- 
Lectures,  first   series,  sul)jects  of, 
xvii,  M 

length  of.  liii, 

not  reported,  li. 

plan  of  eai  h.  Ixviii.  |\ix 
lecturing,  t'ariyle's  vi.  >.  oi.  xxxv. 

'  i older      Te  <ti,  xiv. 
Lee,  Sidii   ■     ;j-. 
/./■///////;■(■  zu  Stii.f,  30?. 
Lenihall,  (rdniwil!  to,  355. 
Ixjohen.  I'eace  of.  363. 
Letters  from  J/i,i,'/i  Latitudes,  303. 
Lieutenant  of  la  Fire,  362. 
light  chafers.  353. 
'  like  a  I'iinviintree,'  303. 
Lindsay.l'rof.T.  M.on  Luther,  337. 
Literature  auil  I hK'ma,  29;. 
'Literature  of  lJesper-\tion,'  351. 


388 


LRCTVKRS  ON  HEKOES 


'  Literature  will  take  care,'  3,6. 
'live  coal,'  316. 
'living  in  a  vain  show,' 315. 
I^ckhart,  Z(/5r  of /Utrns,  319. 
London  Library,  Carlyle  and,  ^z-j. 
London    of    1840     characterized, 

Ixxxvi. 
Longfellow,  345. 

Divine  Comedy,  319. 
Lope  de  Vega,  300. 
Loudon  captures  Schweidnitz,  331. 
Louis,  character  of,  xxxi. 
I^well,  J.  R.,  quoted,  304. 
Lucy,  Sir  Thomas,  ^^z^. 
Ludlow,  Edmund,  re  jicide,  355. 
Luther,  a  favorite  subject,  xliv. 
birthplace  of,  2,7^2. 
had  to  beg,  332. 
death  of  friend,  t,t^t;^. 
a  pious  monk,  ^y^. 
doomed  to  perdition,  ^Zl- 
finds  Latin  Hible,  y^^. 
professor  in  Wittenberg,  334. 
at  Rome.  II ,. 
opposition  to  Tetzel,  334. 
at  Klster-fJate,  335. 
at  the  Diet  of  Worms,  335. 
his  recantation  demanded,  335. 
his  defence,  335. 
virtual  ruler,  342. 
Carlyle  on,  xxx. 
K(  k's  attack  on,  y2. 
defiance  of  Duke  (;eorge,  338. 
ink  bottle,  :^yj. 
Kranach's  portrait,  339. 
prose,  337. 
Richter  on,  337. 
Tahle-  T,ilk,  33S. 
LHth,r,    Ma>ti„,    Oder   die    IVei/ie 
Jer  Kraft,  306. 


Macanlay  on  Boswell,  Ixxx. 
machine  of  the  universe,  299. 
Macready,  opinion  of  second  lec- 
ture, xl. 
'made  me  lean,'  321. 
Mahomet,  an  impostor,  307. 
can  work  no  miracles,  313. 
Carlyle's  defence  of,  xli. 
C  arlyle's  first  view  of,  xxxix. 
chosen  as  subject,  xxxvi. 
escapes,  311. 

highest  joys,  spiritual,  316. 
his   Heaven  and   Hell,  sensual. 

3r6. 
his  last  words,  314. 
horse-shoe  vein,  309. 
Inanity,  30S. 

lamentation  over  Seid,  315. 
lecture,  success  of,  xxxix. 
not  sensual,  314. 
opinion  of,  reversed,  Ixxx. 
payment  of  three  drachms,  315. 
saying  of,  t,t^<^. 
Malebolgf,  320. 
Mallet,  Northern  Antiquities, cited, 

299,  300.  302.  303,  304,  305. 
Mallock,    argument    for    history. 

Ixxviii. 
•man  that  walketh,'  308. 
mannerisms  in  //eroes,  Iviii. 
manuscript,  Carlyle's  use  of,  li,  n. 
^^arat,  xxxii,  xxxiii. 
Marie  Antoinette,  story  of  needle, 

xxxii. 
Martineau,  Harriet,  xv. 
literary  success  of.  xiii. 
on  Carlyle's  appearance,  xix. 
on  Carlyle's  portraits.  Ixxxi,  n. 
on  Knglish  society  before  Car- 
lyle, Ixxxiv,  Ixxxvi. 


INDEX   TO  JNTKODUCTIOA-  AND  NOTES 


:}89 


Mary  de  Clifford,  345. 
Mary  Queen  of  Scnts,  342. 
masters  of  their  time,  heroes,  Ixxv. 
Maurice,  F.  I).,  i,,  Carlyle's  first 

audience,  xvi. 
his  opinion  of  the  second  course, 

xxiii. 

opinion  of  the  Mahomet  lecture, 

xl,  xli. 
repelled  by  third  lecture,  xliii. 
thinks  Carlyle  in  danger,  xliv. 
his  disgust  at  vogue  of  Heroes, 

Ixxvii. 

meaning  of  his  complaint, 

Ixxxvii. 
Maurice,   Priscilla,  at  lectures  On 

Heroes,  xl. 
Mayflower,  error  regarding,  339. 
McCrie,  Life  of  Knox.  341,  342. 
*  measure  by  a  scale  of  perfection,' 

354- 
Mecca,  flight  from,  312. 
Meditations  at  Versailles,  349. 
Melville's  Diary,  342. 
'  mere  quackery,'  203. 
metaphor  restrained  in  Iferoes,  Ixi. 
Michelet,  332,  i2,h  334.  ll(^,  337. 

l3^  339- 
Mill,  Harriet,  at  Carlyle's  lectures, 

xlv. 
Mill,  J.  S.,  interrupts  Carlyle,  xli, 

(Carlyle's  apology  to,  347. 
Milnes,  Monckton,  on  success  of 
second  course,  xxiii. 

to  assist,  XV. 
Milton,  sonnet,  cited,  355. 

on  Cromwell,  359. 
Mimer-stithy,  304. 
Mirabeau,  xxxi,  xxxii,  307. 


Miraiieau,   a    possible    Cromwell, 
xxxii. 
subject  of  lecture,  xxx. 
Miracles,  Age  of,  past,  332. 

Mahomet  no  worker  of,  313. 
Mohammed,    Life   and    Teachings 
of,  quoted,  310,  311. 
Speeches     and     Table- Talk     of, 
cited,  313. 
.Mohammedanism  sincere,  Ixxv. 
Monarchies  of  Man,  355. 
money,  omnipotence  of,  346. 
Montaigne  cited,  349. 
Montegut,    detiniti<m    of    'hero,' 
Ixxiv.  Ixxv,  n. 
on  influence  of  Heroes,  Ixxxvii. 
.Month  Ramadhan,  317. 
.Montholon,    Memoirs,    361,    36-', 

Moral  Prudence,  348. 
morbidity  of  Knglish  life,  Ixxxiv. 
More  in  (iielsea,  xii. 
Morley,  English  Writers,  quoted, 

297. 
Miinster,  Anabaptists,  337. 
Miin/er,  image  breaking.  337. 
Muir,     Life    of    Mohammed,  309, 

3".  3'5.  3'7- 
Murdoch,    Burns's    schoolmaster, 

352- 
Murray,  Regent,  eulogy  on  Knox, 

34' 
Music,  devils  fled  from,  339. 
My  Inner  Life  cited,  xix,  n. 
'  mystery  of  'lime,'  295. 
mystic  unfathomable  song,  319. 

Napoleon,  xxxii. 
compared  with  Cromwell,  xxxiii. 
delight  in  Homer,  326. 


390 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


Napoleon,  falsity  of,  361. 
ideas  of,  364. 

Lieutenant  of  La  Fere,  362. 
Life  of,  363. 

on  English  taciturnity,  350. 
on  the  Tenth  of  August,  362. 
on    the    Twentieth     of    June, 

362. 
sincere,  Ixxv. 
up-bringing  of,  xlviii. 
•Napoleon  has  words,'  317. 
Natural   History    of  Relii;ioH 

quoted,  293. 
'Nature,  a  just  umpire,'  Ixxvii. 
Neal's   History  of  the  Puritans, 

339- 
Necker,  Gibbon  on,  357. 
Neptune,  306. 
new  Heaven,  305. 
Newman,  influence  compared  with 

Carlyle's,  Ixxxvi. 
Niebuhr,  his  death,  354. 
Nineteenth  Century,  The,  347. 
no  bricklayer,  354. 
'  No  Homer  sang,'  303. 
No  Popery,  336. 
'  non  han  speranza,'  325. 
'  non  ragionam,'  325. 
Nonentity,  344. 
Nomas,  299. 

Norse  mythology,  Carlyle's  quali- 
fications, xxxviii. 
literature,  Carlyle's   service   to, 
Ixxx. 
Northland    Sovereigns,   woodcut- 
ters, 303. 
'not  a  leaf,'  295. 
'  not  as  fools,'  347. 
N^otes  and  Queries,  346. 
'  notions  of  the  world,'  364. 


Novalis,  F.  von  Hardenberg, 
quoted  or  cited,  296,  301, 
311.  3'9.  328. 

'  nucleus  of  a  comet,'  296. 

Obiter  Dicta  cited,  348. 

'  observed  elsewhere,'  353. 

Ocadh,  308. 

ocean,  Purgatory  in,  331. 

Odd  the  Monk  quoted,  305. 

Odin,  chosen  as  subject,  xxxvi. 

invented  poetry,  302. 

prince,  300. 
official  pumps,  340. 
Olaf,  King,  305. 

and  Thor,  Ixxx,  305. 
Olaf  the  Saint,  Carlyle's  error  re- 
garding, 305. 
Old  kings,  sea-burial  of,  303. 
On  the  Knocking  at  the    Gate  in 

Macbeth,  329. 
open  secret,'  'the,  317. 
oral  speech  in  Heroes,  Ixii. 
Owen  as  a  lecturer,  xiv. 
Oxford    Movement    and    Heroes, 
Ixxxiii,  336. 

Palm,  court-martial  of,  364. 
Paoli,  General,  Hoswell  and,  356. 
Paradise  Lost  quoted,  346. 
Paradiso  quoted,  320,  321. 
paragraphs   in   Heroes,  shortened, 

Iviii. 
Parian  Chronicle,  301. 
Paris  Sketch-Book,  349. 
parts,  best,  of  Heroes,  Ixxix. 
Patmos,  Craigenputtoch,  338. 
Paul  Clifford,  345. 
Peace,  salutation,  316. 
pearls,  request  forCarlyle's,  xxxviiL 


INDEX    TO   IXTRODUCTION  AND  NOTES  391 


Peasants'  War,  337. 
'  people  of  Verona,'  331. 
perfect  througli  sufftrinj;,  \Z2. 
I'erilhis,  Carlylu's  error  rugurding, 

347- 
Persiflagt;  of  Voltaire,  zcfo. 
I'etrarch,  Rci  uin  MiinoranJiiriitii, 

y.o. 
riictiii}  I  it'd,  294. 
Phalaris'-liiill,  347, 
Phalaris,   confused   with    Perillus, 

347- 
Phelps.  ScL .ttoHsfiom  Cniy, cited, 

303- 

Phili])  of  Macedoii,  Carlyle  on, 
xxvi. 

phra-es  omitted  from  //<•<•( v.,-,  xlvi, 
xlix. 

pie-powder  court,  356. 

pigeon,  story  of,  307. 

Pindar.  Culyl'-'s  inaccuracy  re- 
gardiiiLj,  y.G. 

Piozzi's  Ai!,-(-(fi'f,-s  quoted,  ■jiq. 

Pitt  and  Bums,  Ixxxiii.  Ixxxiv. 

Plato,  Carlyle's  confusion  regard- 
ing. 295. 

'pluck  a  hair.'  297. 

phirals,  Carlyle's  fondness  for. 
Ixiii. 

Plutarch    (Langhorne's)     quoted, 

350'  357- 
Plutus  collapses,  322. 
Pococke  quotetl.  307. 
Podesta.  319. 

Pollock,  Sir  F.,  on  Heroes,  Hi,  n. 
Pontiff  of  Kncyclopedism,  297. 
poor,  the  honest,  ("arlyle  on,  xxx. 
Pope  and  ISoIingbroke,  xii. 
Pope  quoted.  310. 

Z>««rwi/ quoted  and  £ited,  312. 


Pope's-( 'oncordat,  363. 
popularity  of  Heroes,  Ixii. 
I'ortman    Scjuare,    second    course 

at.  xxi. 
third  course  at,  .xxvi. 
Portrait  of  Dante,  by  (Wotto,  319. 
portraits,  Carlyle's,  Ixxxi. 
pretension  of  scanning,  310. 
Prideaux,  Humphrey,  313. 

'True     Nature      of     Imposture 

quoted,  307,  309,  314;  cited, 

3'3- 
Pride's  Purges,  3 58. 
I'riniate  of  Mngl-ind,  346. 
Truuipaux  l-.viiiemens,  363. 
printers,  American,  of  Heroes,  Iviii. 
I'rior,  Dante  as,  319. 
Progress  of  Species,  331. 
Protestantism  of  Carlyle.  xxx. 

mountain  of,  shakes,  326. 
Piiri^atorio  (juoted,  325,  326. 
I'urgatory,  in  ocean,  331. 
Puritanism,  Carlyle's   fairness  to, 

xxix. 
("arlyle's  study  of,  xlvii. 
Cariyle  on,  xxviii. 
Puritans,  genuine  set  of  fighters, 

35^'- 

Queen    Antoinette   and    Voltaire, 

296. 
Queens'   Gardens  contrasted   with 

Heroes,  Ixviii. 
Qutiitus  Fixiein,  295,  346.  353. 

Racine's  death.  354. 
radicalism,  Carlyle's.  294. 
Ragnarok,  305. 
Ranelagh,  Johnson  at,  347. 
rank,  the  guinea-stamp,  353. 


392 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


Rash-'all  quoted,  1'^:^,  345. 

recruiting  for  Carlylt's  lectures,  xv. 

RedgauntUt  cited,  309. 

red  pinnacle,  322. 

Reformation,  History  of,  cited,  ^t,^, 

334- 
Reformation   in  Scotland  quoted, 

34'.  342. 
Reform  Bill,  a  revolution,  Ixxxv. 
Regent,  '  Adonis  of  Fifty,'  xii. 
'Religion  cannot  pass  away,'  364. 
Reminiscences,  portraits  in,  Ixxxi, 

300. 
reporters,    Carlyle    expects    help 

from,  li. 
Representative  Men,  327,  329,  361. 

derived  from  Iferoes,  Ixxxii. 
'  representing  gold,'  296. 
Republic  cited,  294. 
Republic,  The  New,  ciced,  Ixxviii. 
Researches  into  the  Early  I/ntory 

of  Mankind  cited,  298. 
revenge,  the  Koran  on,  315. 
revolution,  men  of,  carried  away 
by  it,  336. 

Revolutions   of   Modern   Europe, 
xxvi. 

ribs  of  death,  340. 

Richardson    and    Fielding    com- 
pared by  Johnson,  327. 

Richter  says,  337. 
rider's  horse,  311. 

Robertson,    History    of  America, 

quoted,  302. 
Robespierre,  xxxii. 
Robinson,  address  to  Pilgrims,  339. 
Rogers,  in  first  audience,  xvi. 
Roland,  subject  of  lecture,  xxx. 
Rome,  Luther  at,  334. 
Rotneo  and  Juliet  quoted,  352. 


'  rose  to  victory,'  348. 
Rossetti,  W.  M.,  321. 
Rousseau    and    Mde.   de   Genlis, 
350  f. 
appeals  to  mothers,  351. 
Carlyle's  treatment  of,  xlvii. 
Carlyle's  insight  into,  Ixxiv. 
compared  with  Scott,  Ixxiii. 
sincere,  Ixxv. 
stealing  ribbon.  351. 
Royal    Institution,    Cokridge   at. 
xiv. 

Rump   Parliament,  dismissal,  35S. 
Runes,  302. 

Ruskin,   influence    of    Heroes   on, 
Ixxxv  ii. 

method    contrasted    with    far- 

lyle's,  Ixvii. 
treatment  of  audience.  I. 
Russell,  Lord  William,  nmrder  or. 
xxxviii. 


Sabeans.  308. 
Sxmund,  297. 
Saint   Helena,  Xapoleon  in,  361, 

■Sale,  used  i)y  Carlyle,  xx.xix. 
Salisbury,  Bishop  of,  at  Carlyle's 

lectures,  xl. 
Sand,  George,  referred  to,  351. 
Sansculottism,  xxxii. 

good  lecture  on,  xxxiv. 
Sartor    Resartus,    295,    296,    joo, 
301,  303.  305,  3'0.  311,  3i,S, 
332.  346,  347. 
anticipated  in  part,  Ixxi. 
Anstey's  interest  in,  xxv. 
contains  Heroes  in  embryo.  Ixxi, 

Ixxii. 
features  of  style  in,  Ix. 


INDEX   TO  INTKODUCTION  AND  NOTES 


193 


Saunders  and  Ottley,  offer  for  //>- 

fp^s,  Iv. 
savans,  Hourrieiuie  tells  of,  361. 
Saxo  Grammaticus,  300,  31S. 
Saxons,  conversion  of,  31^. 
scene  at  lecture,  xli. 
Sceptical  Century,  347. 
Schiller,     Cffirr    Aiimnth     uitd 

IViinic,  lited,  302. 
Scholar,  7'/4,'  Nattire of  tlu;  tiuoted. 

3'S-  34;,.  3-}4- 
Schoolmaster,  crabbed  old,  328. 
Schweidnitz  Fort,  331. 
Scott,  Ciirlyle's  disparagement  of. 

hero  as  man  of  letters.  Ixxiii. 

Life  of  Xijfoleon  cited,  363. 
Scotticism,  'doubt,'  xlviii,  332. 
Scottish  exiles  in  England,  xi. 
second  course  of  lectures  longest 
and  best  paid,  xxvi. 

price  two  guineas,  xx. 

receipts,  xxiv. 

reported  by  Anstey,  xxv. 

subjects  of,  xxi,  n. 

twelve,  XX. 
Sensations  if /tali,-  (|wotfd.  363. 
.sentence  structure,  careless,  Ixvi. 
Sergius,  309. 
Serpent  queller.   ^ ;.:. 
Sisamc  iiiiti  l.ilics  cited,   pi. 
se\en     pounds,     Hurns's     wages, 

353- 
'shaking  of  the  spear,'  35:. 
Sliikisf'care„Life  of,  J.ee's.  327. 
Shakspere  and  the  Indian  Kmpire. 
xliii. 
Carlyle's  lectures  on,  .\lii. 
characters  <;f,  like  watches,  3J;. 
De  Quincey  on,  3^9. 


Shakspere,  Kmerson  on,  329, 
Goethe  on,  327. 
greatest  of  Intellects,  328. 
intellect  of,  unconscious,  328. 
Shekinah.  Carlyle's  error  regard- 
ing, 2<>s. 
the  true,  295. 
Shelley  (pioted,  301. 
'  shoes  at  ( )xford,'  Jnhn.son's.  348. 
shouiderlilades  of  mutton,  313. 
Siflcidas,  translation  from,  327. 
Siiliman,  success  as  lecturer,  xiv. 
'sincerest  of  poems,"  321. 
Hucerity,    Carlylean   doctrine    of, 

Ixxv. 
Smith,  Adam,  301. 
Smith,  Sydney,  as  a  lecturer,  xiv. 
Smollett  in  Chelsea,  xii. 
Snorro,  207. 
society,  London,  few  in   number, 

Ixxxvi. 
soldier  and  hero,  synonyms,  Ixxii. 
'sold  (;ver  counter.s,"  295. 
Solomon  says,  357. 
Sordello  mistaken  for  Latini,  322. 
Spanish  voyagers,  2r>8. 
Species,  Progress  of,  331. 
Sf'cimen    I/istorur   Arahimi,   307, 

30S. 
Speddipg     a.ssisis     in     collecting 

audience,  xv. 
■.speech  is  crcat,"  -,;■). 
SpeeJwtll,  339. 

spelling,  Carlyle's  American,  Iviii. 
Spur/heim,    success    as    lecturer, 

xiv. 
St.  .Viulrew's,  Kno.v  at,  340. 
St.  Clement  Panes,  348. 
Stephen,  I,.,  summary  of  Carlylean 
doctrine,  Ixxxiv. 


394 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


Sterling,  John,  xvi. 
and  Caroline  Fox,  xxiv,  xliv. 
observes    ladies    taking    notes, 
xxiv. 
Stevenson,  R.  i,.,  j^, 
Stewart,  I'rofessor.  on  Hums,  5  =  . 
'stifle  him,' 296. 
'still  small  voice,"  510. 
Storch,  image-breaker,  53;. 
'strain  your  neck,'  304. 
Strength  is  mournfully  denied,  553. 
'strip  your  ixjuis  Quatorze,'  349.'' 
stripping-off,  2i)i. 
Sturlunga  Sas^a  cited,  305. 
style,  features  of  Carlyie's,  Ix. 
of  Heroes,  low-pitchud,  Ix,  ixii, 
Ixiv. 

subjunctive,  Carlyie's  fondness  for, 
Ixiii. 

success  of  Heroes  as  lectures,  xlix. 
'succession  of  falls,' 30S. 
summary  and  index,  not  in  Heroea, 
Iviii. 

summary  to    Heroes  not  needed, 

Ixix. 
sun,  done  under,  331. 
Swedenborg,  Emerson  on,  Ixxxii, 
Syed  Ameer  Ali,  approval  of  Car- 
lyle,  Ixxx. 
quoted,  310.  311,  312. 
sympatheix  ink,  300. 


Table-Talk  of   Coleridge  quoted, 

34-- 
Tabdc,  War  of,  315. 
'talent  of  silence,'  350. 
tavern-vaiters  and  Voltaire,  inu. 
Taylor,  Henry,  xv. 
Taylor's,    Mrs.,   maid    burns  Car- 
lyie's manuscript,  xii. 


Tempesi,  CaHyle  fond  of  quoting. 

xlii. 
Tennyson,  xvi. 
on  social  wants,  Ixxxvi. 
Pruuesi  (juoted,  30.S. 
Tenth  of  August,  ^Uz. 
terrestrial  libd,  334. 
Tetztl's  Pardons,  ij-    >,« 
ihailur.iy,  adrawingof,  34,,. 
at  second  course,  xxii.  xxiv. 
lectures  at  Willjs'.s,  xiv. 
7y,eory  0/ Moral  Sc„t,me,U<.  :„,. 


'  the  third  man,'  341,. 

•They?  what  are  they?'  343. 

Thialfi,  304. 

nibet.  Ham, /to,,-,  Tra-'eh  ,„,  295. 

Thibet  methods,  2i<4. 

Thibet,  Titrncr's  Trav.is  ,„,  293. 
thimble,  Nanna's,  30;. 
third  course,  subject  of,  xxvi. 
'This  month,'  35;. 
Tlior,  2()S. 

andOlaf  Trygvas.son,  305. 
'brows.'  305. 

description  of.  304. 
expeditions,  30  j. 
meaning  of,  ^''^^i- 
three-times-til lee.  340. 
TAroug/,  the  Lookwg.Giass  cited, 

?A0. 
thunder-hammer,   ;^-;. 
Ticknor,   his   opinion   oi   Carlyle, 
xxiii. 
H,st,„y    of    Sra,„sh   Literature 
quoted,  301. 
Time,  mystery  of,  .'95. 
rimes  report  of  third  lecture,  xlii. 
Times   reporter   corrects    Carlyle, 

•  Tolerance  has  to  tolerate,  342. 


IXDEX    TO  INTKODLXnox  AXD  XOTES 


J9S 


Tombs  in  In/crno,  322. 
Torf.vu^,  500. 
Tract  AC,  336. 

Traill,  II.  1),,  admission  legardinK 
Uitofs,  Ixxix. 
disparaging,  Ixx. 
failure  to  explain,  xxxvi. 
misunderstands      hero-worship, 
Ixxvii. 

objections  to  Heroes,  Ixix. 
objections  anticipated,  507. 

transitory  ).;arinent,  jio. 

Trebizond,  Carlyle's  error  regard- 
ing. JOG. 

Tree,  Machine,  -,47. 

'treniolar  dell'  onde,'  },2y 

Tren(  h,  .\rLlil)ishop.  xvi. 

hears  report  of  lecturr,  xx\ix. 
to  Wilherforce,  xxxviii. 

triads,  use  of,  Ixii, 

Tristiiim  ShaiiJy,  J95. 

Troilus  </;/,/  CressUa,  352. 

truth  in  all  systems,  Ixxvii. 
on  watch  seal,  348. 

WOrils  of,    T^T^^, 

Tugend,  etymology  of,  5  !;6. 
tumult  in  the  High  Church.  ^40. 
turl)an,  Arab,  for  '  tulwar '(?),  331. 
Turner's  Account,  293. 
Twentieth  of  June,  36;. 
'  two  Prelates,'  \^z. 

UhlanH.  Mvt/uis  rou  fhoy,  quoted 

29S. 
Uhland's  essay,  304. 
Ulfila,  299. 

'ultimus  Romanorum.'  ^:;o. 
'  under  the  ribs  of  dfath,'  340. 
Universal  Ifistory.  2i)\. 
Universal  three-timesihree,  340. 


Universitiis,  <  arlyle's  error  regard- 

'"«.  345- 
I'uiversitifs  vj  /  iirofc,  333,  345. 
•  unreadable  masse.s,"  y.'. 
unreality,  (  arlyle's  sense  of,  Ixxvi. 
L'shers  de  Hie/e,  352, 
Utilitarian  ethics,  larlyle's  view, 
.)4r- 

'  Va  bon  train,'  ^9^1, 
'  vaccine  du  la  religion,'  3(1;. 
N'alkyr^,  ;o2. 
Vatts.  317. 

Nenaliles  of  S,tturJ,iy  Kniew,  xvi. 
Victoria,  Queen,  (  arlyle  on.  394. 
reign  began  with  /•;■,•;/,//  A\ro/u- 
fit'",  xiii. 
\igfusson,    approval     of    ( "arlyle, 
Ixxx 
citetl.  29S,  505. 
•virtual  I'resitkm y,'  542. 

/'//,/  XllOTil,    \\t). 

voice,    impression    of,    in     //eroes, 

l.xi,  Ixii. 
Voltaire,  and  Holingbroke.  xii. 

lecture  on,  xxix,  \x\ 

Persiflage  of,  ^96. 
V.llundr,  Wayland  Smith,  ;o4. 

^ValpoIe.     Horace,    not    a    dunce 

32S. 
li;,i„/crt„^     ir,//,cs     Talc     iited, 

■wanting  nothing,'  jb;. 

want  of  money,  motive  foi  writing, 

111- 
W'ednesbury,  \oz. 
'  wcighed-oiit  to  yoii,'  ^|c. 
■  well  with  them,'  29;. 
Welsh,  Mrs.,  death  of.  hii. 


396 


LECTURES  ON  HEROES 


'We  require,  to  rest;  ct,'  ji6. 
H'tstH  des  Celthrten,  343. 
•  What  built  St.  Paul'    ' '  345. 
When  I'ococlce  intjui     ..,  307. 
IVhert  Three  l-.mpirts  Meet,  294. 
Whewell  at  Carlyle's  lectuies.  xlv. 
'  Who  are  you  ? '  342. 
'  Whosoever  denieth,'  335. 
Willwrforce,  at  Carlyle's  IcLturcs, 
xlv. 
at  second  lecture,  xl. 
request  from  Trench,  xxxviii. 
Wiley  &  Putnam  publish  Heroes, 

Iviii. 
Wilhelm    Meister,    306,   317,   329, 
354- 
reviewed  by  Jeffrey,  312. 
William  IV,  farlyle  on,  294. 
Wilson,  D.,  on  Froude,  Ixix,  n. 
Wilson,  Miss,  xv. 
Wilson,  Thomas,  xv. 
•  window  through  which,'  295. 


'  without  tlod,'  355, 
'  without  prior  purpose,'  347. 
Wittenberg,  Luther  in,  334. 
WoNeley    on     Puritan    suldiers, 

356- 
Words  are  good,  329, 
IVords,  Facts  ami  Phrases,  346. 
work,  not  think,  353. 
World- Poets,  318. 
'  world  was  not  his  friend, '  352. 
'  world,  where  much  is  to  be  done,' 

349- 
Worms,  devils  in,  335. 

Diet  of,  2,^^. 
Wiinsch,  the  god,  298. 
Wuotan,  erroneous  etymology  of, 
300. 

Yesterday,  to-day,  326. 
You  do  not  Ijelieve,  332. 

Zeinab,  Mahomet's  daughter,  315 


Index  lenrnini;  turns  no  student  fale, 
Yet  holds  the  eel  of  science  by  the  tail. 


